12 Favorite Comedies of 2011: ’2 Broke Girls’ and ’30 Rock’
'30 Rock' returns to NBC in January 2012.
The 12 Comedies of 2011
It’s the end of another year. Holiday spirit may or may not be in the air, it’s the six weeks of the year that grocers stock eggnog, and everyone is making a list of their favorite entertainment articles from the last 12 months.
I’m bucking the tradition of a rigid “10 best series” approach and focusing on 12 comedies I couldn’t get enough of this year. That’s not because there weren’t plenty of outstanding dramas; there always are. But I experienced a TV comedy renaissance this year, and in addition to being thoroughly entertaining, many of these 12 shows play a part in reevaluating our rigid definitions of comedy and drama. Should we be thinking more Shakespearean, where comedy or tragedy is just an indication of the type of ending you can expect?
I’ll leave these heavy questions for another day and instead lay forth my favorite half-hour series of 2011 (or that I enjoyed primarily in 2011), in arbitrary alphabetical order.
2 Broke Girls
I liked Whitney Cummings’ standup, and I’m impressed with anyone who can get two shows on the air in one development cycle. Though I think the overall critical derision of Whitney is a bit much, that show doesn’t do anything for me. 2 Broke Girls, on the other hand, hits me where I live, which is modestly, and in the lower middle (if not upper lower) class.
Probably not since Roseanne has a show so aggressively tapped into economic hardship as a plot driver, and that’s probably a factor in the show’s success. I can’t defend the racist caricatures the titular girls work with at the diner or the constant barrage of vagina jokes, but Max and Caroline’s financial struggles are eminently relatable to, dare I say it, the 99%.
30 Rock
Tina Fey’s masterwork is getting on in years, but this year it proved that creativity often thrives under a constraint. With Tracy Morgan sidelined for multiple episodes due to a health issue, the show was forced to write around him. And in so doing, it managed to be hysterical and deeply profound.
Aaron Sorkin helped Liz grapple with her career trajectory, Sherri Shepherd continued to probably not be in on the joke with her Queen of Jordan reality show arc, and in the suddenly timely Kim Jong-Il episode, Liz accepted that she is not the master of her fate, while Jack did a duet with Condoleezza Rice.
The show’s fall hiatus to accommodate Fey’s maternity leave coincided nicely with the show’s syndication debut, and now I’m all set for the sixth (possibly final) season, kicking off January 12, 2012.
