Studio 30 (season 4)

While Liz gives love advice to the male part of the TGS team that does nothing but harm, she meets a man ( Michael Sheen ) who could become her favorite, despite Liz's initial lack of interest in him. She is also trying to buy an apartment located above her. As for Jack, he is fond of two different women and finds it difficult to choose between his school sweetheart ( Julianne Moore ) and a girl as successful as he ( Elizabeth Banks ). Jack is also trying to impress Kabletown executives . Tracy tries to be taken seriously, and starred in the movie Hard to Watch , to fulfill his cherished dream and get into the "List of people who received an Oscar , Emmy , Grammy and Tony ." Jenna starts dating a man who is a traditional -style drag queen ( Will Forte ) and sees her mother ( Jen Hooks ). In addition, circumstances arise that could cause Kenneth Purcell to be fired.

Some storylines describe the acquisition of NBC by Kabletown . The death of former GE chairman Don Geiss ( Rip Thorne ) is also reported. Jack instructs TGS to find a new actor for the show. Upon learning of this, Josh Girard quits his job to try himself in a new capacity, but fails and comes back. In the end, Jack “Danny” Baker ( Cheyenne Jackson ) is hired .

The season ends with the wedding of Keri Xerox with Aris, whose face is still not shown to the audience.

, Little Stranger and NBC Universal participated in the creation of Studio 30, and for the first time the series was shown on NBC in the US ^[1] . Executive producers were the author of the idea, Tina Fey , as well as , , and ^[2] . The co-executive producers were Jack Burditt , , , and ^{[3] [4] [5]} . The producers of the season were Alec Baldwin , , Paula Pell and , and co-producers Diana Schmidt, and ^{[5] [6]} .

During the season, eight people became directors. The directors of more than one episode were the producer of the series Don Scardino, as well as . Only one director during the season was John Riggy, Gail Mancuso , , Stephen Lee Davis, Millicent Shelton and Jeff Richmond. The scripts were written by Tina Fey, Robert Carlock, Matt Hubbard, Ron Weiner, Dylan Morgan, Josh Seagal, John Heller, Tracy Wigfield, Jack Burditt and Paula Pell.

Since the plot of the series revolves around the TGS TV show, the main roles in the season were played by the actors who played the employees of the channel. Tina Fey played the role of Liz Lemon, the main screenwriter of the show ^[8] . Two main actors worked in the show. Tracy Morgan played Tracey Jordan, a freaking unsuccessful movie actor. ^[8] The role of his partner, an extremely narcissistic actress Jenna Maroni, was played by Jane Krakowski ^[9] . Josh Girard, played by , was one of the TGS actors in previous seasons ^[10] , but left the show in the episode “Season 4” ^[11] . The new actor to replace him was Jack “Danny” Baker, whose role was played by Cheyenne Jackson ^[12] . played the role of the simple-minded employee of the channel Kenneth Parsell ^{[10] [13]} . Witt and sane producer of "TGS" Pete Hornberger played ^{[10] [14]} , and the role of the energetic and constantly wearing baseball cap odious screenwriter Frank Rossitano played Jude Friedlander ^{[10] [15]} . The head of the NBC television channel, Jack Donagi, was portrayed by Alec Baldwin ^{[8] [10]} . Tufer Sperlock, a Harvard graduate and screenwriter for the show, was played by ^{[10] [16]} Katrina Bowden played the role of screenwriter assistant Keri Xerox ^{[10] [17]} . Also in the season there were recurring characters from the first seasons: Jonathan ( ) ^[18] , “Grizz” Griswold ( ) ^[19] , “Point com” Slatteri ( Kevin Brown ) ^[20] and J. D. Lutz ( ) ^[21] .

Several recurring roles in the season were played by guest stars. Jack is fond of two women during the season. The first, Avery Jessup, was played by Elizabeth Banks (in seven episodes - “Anna Howard Shaw Day”, “Future Husband”, “Khonani”, “Lee Marvin vs. Derek Jeter”, “The Moms”, “Emanuelle Goes to Dinosaur Land "And" I Do Do ") ^[22] . The role of the former school sweetheart, Nancy Donovan, was played by Julianne Moore , who appeared in five episodes (“Secret Santa”, “Winter Madness”, “Lee Marvin vs. Derek Jeter”, “Emanuelle Goes to Dinosaur Land” and “I Do Do” ) ^[23] . Liz's former men also appeared. Jason Sudeikis played Floyd in four episodes (“Anna Howard Shaw Day”, “Floyd”, “Emanuelle Goes to Dinosaur Land” and “I Do Do”) ^[24] , John Hamm played the role of Dr. Drew Baird (episodes of “Anna Howard Shaw Day ”and“ Emanuelle Goes to Dinosaur Land ”) ^[24] , Dean Winters portrayed Dennis Duffy in the episodes“ Anna Howard Shaw Day ”and“ Emanuelle Goes to Dinosaur Land ” ^[24] . Michael Sheen played British Wesley Snipes, a man who believes that he and Liz are destined for each other (episodes of "Future Husband", "Don Geiss, America and Hope", "Emanuelle Goes to Dinosaur Land" and "I Do Do") ^{[ 25]} . The role of Devon Banks, Jack's rival, was still played by Will Arnett (episodes of "Into the Crevasse" and "Dealbreakers Talk Show # 0001") ^[26] . The role of Dr. Spaceman in the fourth season became a guest, and she, like in the first seasons, was played by Chris Parnell (episodes of “Sun Tea” and “Dealbreakers Talk Show # 0001”) ^[27] , and Dr. Kaplan was played by James Rebhorn (episodes Future Husband and Don Geiss, America and Hope) ^[28] . Will Ferrell portrayed Shane Hunter in the episodes of “The Moms” and “Lee Marvin vs. Derek Jeter ” ^[29] , and Will Forte played Paul, Jenna’s boyfriend (episodes of“ Argus ”and“ I Do Do ”). In the first episode, a star from the previous season appeared - Steve Buscemi in the role of a private detective Lenny Wozniak employed by Jack ^[30] . In the final episode, Carol was played by Matt Damon ^[31] . Director Sean Levy portrayed Scottie Shofar in the episode "The Problem Solvers", while Sherry Shepherd and played the roles of wife and son Tracy, respectively ^{[27] [32]} . This season the mothers of the main characters appeared - Jack (the role of Colin was played by Stretch, Elaine in the episode “The Moms”) ^[33] , Liz (the role of Margaret was played by in the episode “The Moms”) ^[33] , Jenna ( the role of Verna was played by Jen Hooks in the episodes “Verna” and “The Moms”) ^[29] and Frank (the role of Sylvia was played by in the episode “The Moms”) ^[29] .

Brian Williams (episodes of “Audition Day” and “Future Husband”), Jimmy Fallon (“Stone Mountain”) ^[34] , Betty White (“Stone Mountain”) ^[35] appeared as guest stars who played themselves ^. , Padma Lakshmi (“The Problem Solvers”) ^[36] , Whoopi Goldberg (“Dealbreakers Talk Show # 0001”) ^[37] , James Franco (“Klaus and Greta”) ^[38] , John Bon Jovi (“Anna Howard Shaw Day ”) ^[24] , Jack Welch (“ Future Husband ”) ^[39] , Buzz Aldrin (“ The Moms ”) ^[40] , (“ The Moms ”) ^[33] ,

Criticism Reviews

Based on seventeen critical reviews, Metacritic rated the season a weighted average of 74 out of 100, which means a generally positive reception for the fourth season of Studio 30 ^[41] . IGN 's Robert Cunning called the season “impressive” and noted that although “Studio 30 no longer seems like a daring new series, and the middle of the season turned out to be a little dull, a great start and an excellent ending showed that it is still a great comedy” ^[42] . After watching the third episode of the season, “Stone Mountain”, The AV Club reviewer Leonard Pearce called the series “terrible,” noting that after watching the first episodes of the fourth season, it’s obvious that the creators of the series need to do something to improve the series. He noted that “the development of the storylines of the characters was sacrificed to random stupid jokes” ^[43] . Sean Gander from the Paste magazine , assessing the latest episode of “I Do Do,” summed up the season, saying that although “the series is still interesting,” he cannot overcome the set bar and become “outstanding.” He, like Pierce, noted the lack of character development, but Gander saw a slight improvement by the end of the season and expressed the hope that "the continuation of the series will be more vivid" ^[44] . Variety journalist Brian Lowry noted that Studio 30 could repeat the fate of another CBS series from the 1990s, Murphy Brown , and having reached its peak of popularity in season three, the show will gradually lose ground. Lowry said that "in fact, the golden moments of the show are a thing of the past." ^[45] IGN Dan Iverson , while reviewing the DVD edition of the season, on the contrary noted the consistency of the quality of “Studio 30” and said that, thanks to new characters and storylines, “this season is worth seeing from beginning to end” ^[46] . DVD Talk reviewer Ryan Kiefer noted that because of the desire to “squeeze as many jokes as possible into the airtime” and the “lack of storyline development”, which used to be the main pride of the series, “the fact remains that in the fourth season there were much fewer creative finds than in previous years ” ^[47] .

Ratings

Compared with the previous one , the fourth season showed a slight decrease in the audience. The premiere episode of Season 4 attracted 6.4 million viewers ^[48] , while the premiere episode of the third Do-Over season was watched by 8.7 million people ^[49] . However, when showing the second episode of Into the Crevasse, the audience grew to 6.7 million people ^[50] . By November 19th, when the sixth episode of “Sun Tea” was shown, the number of viewers fell again - it was seen by 5.7 million viewers in the US ^[51] , but the Christmas episode of “Secret Santa” attracted the attention of 6.7 million people ^[52] . Further, the audience was reduced, and the seventeenth episode of “Lee Marvin vs. Derek Jeter ”, aired on April 22, 2010, saw a record low for the series at that time, the number of viewers in the US - 4.0 million people ^[53] . Prior to this, episodes that attracted a minimal audience were episodes of the first season “Jack the Writer” and “Hard Ball”, which were watched by 4.6 million American viewers ^{[54] [55]} . The final episode of the I Do Do season was seen by 5.5 million people ^[56] , while the finale of the previous season attracted 5.7 million viewers ^[57] . The average number of viewers for the fourth season was 5.9 million people, putting the series in 86th place in the season ^[58] .

Awards and nominations

September 21, 2010 the first season was released on DVD in the first region ^[77] , October 25, 2010 - in the second ^[78] , and November 3, 2010 - in the fourth region ^[79] . The publication consists of twenty-two episodes on three discs, with video format 1.78: 1 (16: 9) and two audio tracks in English, Dolby Surround 5.1 and 2.1, as well as with Spanish subtitles ^[80] . The DVD includes audio commentaries for ten episodes, deleted and off-screen scenes, a short film about the creation of the episode “I Do Do”, the song “Tennis Night in America”, as well as a photo gallery for the season ^[77] .