Jane Krakowski Moves to "30 Rock" But Rachel Dratch Isn't Moving Out

Looks like Calista Flockhart isn't the only Ally McBeal alum looking to make a return to television this fall.

Golden Globe nominee Jane Krakowski (who played Elaine Vassal on Ally McBeal) is heading to NBC's new Tina Fey-helmed comedy 30 Rock. The actress has joined the cast of the freshman comedy, where she'll play the star of The Girly Show, the series' sketch comedy show-within-the-show.

If you're confused by this news, it's because in the original plot (reviewed here) this role was played by Saturday Night Live's Rachel Dratch. But Dratch fans shouldn't be writing letters to the network just yet; she'll continue to appear on the series, playing a variety of smaller supporting characters. Dratch is set to appear as a cat wrangler in the premiere episode. Some of Dratch's characters will return while others will be strictly one-offs.

The move comes as the series is focusing less on The Girly Show and more on the interactions between the characters played by Tina Fey, Alec Baldwin, and Tracy Morgan.

"Both Tina and I obviously adore Rachel, and we wanted to find a way in which we could go to her strength," Saturday Night Live creator (and 30 Rock exec producer) Lorne Michaels told Variety. "The way it's been rewritten, it's a much funnier part."

30 Rock is set to debut Wednesday, October 11th, at 8:30 pm ET/PT on NBC.

Comments

Have a Burning Question for Team Darlton, Matthew Fox, Evangeline Lilly, or Michael Emerson?

Lost fans: you don't have to make your way to the island via Ajira Airways in order to ask a question of the creative team or the series' stars. Televisionary is taking questions from fans to put to Lost 's executive producers/showrunners Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse and stars Matthew Fox ("Jack Shephard"), Evangeline Lilly ("Kate Austen"), and Michael Emerson ("Benjamin Linus") for a series of on-camera interviews taking place this weekend. If you have a specific question for any of the above producers or actors from Lost , please leave it in the comments section below . I'll be accepting questions until midnight PT tonight and, while I can't promise I'll be able to ask any specific inquiry due to the brevity of these on-camera interviews, I am looking for some insightful and thought-provoking questions to add to the mix. So who knows: your burning question might get asked after all.

Continue reading full story...

What's Done is Done: The Eternal Struggle Between Good and Evil on the Season Finale of "Lost"

Every story begins with thread. It's up to the storyteller to determine just how much they need to parcel out, what pattern they're making, and when to cut it short and tie it off. With last night's penultimate season finale of Lost ("The Incident, Parts One and Two"), written by Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse, we began to see the pattern that Lindelof and Cuse have been designing towards the last five seasons of this serpentine series. And it was only fitting that the two-hour finale, which pushes us on the road to the final season of Lost , should begin with thread, a loom, and a tapestry. Would Jack follow through on his plan to detonate the island and therefore reset their lives aboard Oceanic Flight 815 ? Why did Locke want to kill Jacob? What caused The Incident? What was in the box and just what lies in the shadow of the statue? We got the answers to these in a two-hour season finale that didn't quite pack the same emotional wallop of previous season ...

Continue reading full story...

In Defense of Downton Abbey (Or, Don't Believe Everything You Read)

The proof of the pudding, as they say, is in the eating. Which means, if I can get on my soapbox for a minute, that in order to judge something, one ought to experience it first hand. One can't know how the pudding has turned out until one actually tastes it. I was asked last week--while I was on vacation with my wife--for an interview by a journalist from The Daily Mail, who got in touch to talk to me about PBS' upcoming launch of ITV's period drama Downton Abbey , which stars Hugh Bonneville, Dame Maggie Smith, Dan Stevens, Elizabeth McGovern, and a host of others. (It launches on Sunday evening as part of PBS' Masterpiece Classic ; my advance review of the first season can be read here , while my interview with Downton Abbey creator Julian Fellowes and stars Dan Stevens and Hugh Bonneville can be read here .) Normally, I would have refused, just based on the fact that I was traveling and wasn't working, but I love Downton Abbey and am so enchanted with the proj...

Continue reading full story...

[Televisionary]

Search This Blog