BY TOM GLIATTO
COMEDY
Well, this is more like it. NBC already premiered one series inspired bySaturday Night Live, Aaron Sorkin's Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip. That show moves along with the slow, glittery assurance of a luxury casino ship on a glassy sea. 30 Rock is a cigarette boat that races by, sending out a refreshing spray of jokes and mockery. It's the best new sitcom of the fall. Created by and starring former SNL-er Tina Fey, 30 Rock is about a hit sketch-comedy show rocked by the arrival of Jack Donaghy (Alec Baldwin), a hands-on monster from the network's corporate parent. Donaghy's chief claim to fame is marketing an oven that can cook a turkey in just 22 minutes. His first brainstorm is to hire a hip black comedian, Tracy Jordan (Tracy Morgan), even though the guy's prone to Martin Lawrence-style erratic public behavior. Fey has her limits as a comic actress—she doesn't so much nail a scene as tap at it with a small hammer—but Morgan makes Jordan not only nutty but shrewd, and Baldwin, issuing commands in a husky whisper, is magnificent in his awfulness.
E! (Mondays, 9 p.m. ET)
REALITY
Backstreet Boy Nick Carter sets up house with his siblings in this latest cheapo example of reality self-exploitation and promotion, or "exploipromotion." House of Carters is Party of Five recast with the most unhappy immature people in the world.
Nick, 26, has his own wounds to lick—rehab, the breakup with Paris Hilton. But familial anger and suspicion to some degree seem to have poisoned everyone: brother Aaron, 18 (who was engaged to a Playboy model for five seconds before the show's debut), and sisters Angel, 18, Leslie, 20, and BJ, 24. They're all acting for the cameras. They're also acting out: drinking, squabbling, crying, yelling up and down the halls, in and out of bedrooms, showing general dysfunctional unpleasantness. You wish you could find the panic room and hide.
NBC (Wednesdays, 8:30 p.m. ET)
COMEDY
John Lithgow and Jeffrey Tambor play two old friends, a surgeon and a judge, heading into late middle age and newly resolved to treat the rest of their lives as a grand adventure. The setup has elements of both The Odd Couple (Lithgow is the brash leader, Tambor the shy, cautious follower) and Don Quixote and Sancho Panza. So far, it's of interest only for watching Lithgow—who likes to shout his lines with quivering urgency, as if he'd just seen a UFO—as he goes over the top to get a laugh. Surprisingly often, he succeeds.
CBS (Mondays, 8 p.m. ET)
COMEDY
The Class doesn't necessarily generate more laughs than other sitcoms, but it has more charm—like a kinder, gentler How I Met Your Mother—and that's incentive enough to stick with it. A loosely plotted ensemble about young singles who all knew each other back in third grade—those are chains of iron compared to Six Degrees' random connections—The Class has an adorable cast. It includes Jason Ritter as a slavishly devoted guy dumped by his fiancée; Lucy Punch, a tightly wound news anchor; Jesse Tyler Ferguson, soft and depressive; and the great, loopy Heather Goldenhersh. She looks something like a klutzier, more down-to-earth Audrey Tautou, and her voice comes out as a mushed, nasal honk. She's an original.
TLC (Saturdays, 8 p.m. ET)
REALITY
Season 2 brings back the Roloffs and more family joys and challenges: Parents Matt and Amy, both in their 40s, were born with dwarfism, and one of their four children has the condition. In the first episode, a 16th-birthday party is planned for twins Jeremy, who's normal-sized, and Zach, who's little. Zach is also shorter than his 9-year-old brother Jacob—yet the bigger issue seems to be whether Jacob has been acting antsy because he feels neglected. A trip to Hawaii is promised later in the run, but the heart of the show lies in observing the Roloffs at home. The tone is both relaxed and reaffirming: The Roloffs' obstacles matter less than their clear-eyed ability to look beyond them.
>"I've been longing to come back," says the actress, 38, the second Ally McBeal star with a new fall series (Calista Flockhart is on Brothers & Sisters). Krakowski, who has been putting her voluptuous dazzle to work onstage (including Guys and Dolls with Ewan McGregor in London), plays a vulnerably dizzy actress on Rock. "It's fun to send up the more neurotic elements you find in people in this business." And working with SNL vets like Tracy Morgan is a kick. "How can you call it work when you're laughing all the time?"
>What About Brian (ABC, Mondays, 10 p.m. ET) Return of the comedy-drama starring Barry Watson as a real cute guy hung up on love issues.
Project Runway (Bravo, Oct. 11, 10 p.m. ET) Part 1 of the two-week finale and—listen up, people—Tim Gunn is off to visit the finalists' homes.
CSI (CBS, Oct. 12, 9 p.m. ET) Kevin Federline—yes, Kevin Federline—guest stars as a tough young punk. This may actually be more important than McDreamy mania.
Men in Trees (ABC, Fridays, 9 p.m. ET) Meredith (Anne Heche) plans a trip to the big city. Which is Anchorage.
1 vs. 100 (NBC, Oct. 13, 9 p.m. ET) Something of a baby brother for the hit Deal or No Deal: a super trivia game with a $1 million payoff.
Ugly Betty (ABC, Thursdays, 8 p.m. ET) Betty (America Ferrera) gets a makeover, of sorts.
>Runaway's Donnie Wahlberg
On the new CW drama, he plays a man accused of murder and now in hiding with his family. The 37-year-old actor (big brother of Mark Wahlberg) and wife Kim are parents to two boys, Xavier, 13, and Elijah, 5.
ON WHY THE SHOW APPEALS TO HIM If you take one guy and put him on the run, it's The Fugitive. How long are you going to be interested in watching him dodge the cops and figure out the case? But with the family it really is limitless—everyone's emotional journey affects everyone else.
ON PUTTING A CHILD'S LIFE FIRST The reality is, when you're not a parent you don't think about death, you think about whatever—life, living it to the fullest. I mean, I don't think about death now, but I wouldn't hesitate a second if it was a question of one of my children or me. No question. "I'm going! Goodbye." That's what parenting does to you.
ON RUN-INS WITH THE LAW I've had my little skirmishes—I grew up a street kid in Boston. A lot of my older brothers had run-ins with the law, and I sort of learned from their example. I was the one who said, "You know what? I don't want to do that." I made the choice to walk a more straight and narrow line.
>What Not to Wear's Stacy London
In these new shows, "style is almost a character," says TLC's fashion expert Stacy London. So how do the clothes stack up on Smith, Ugly Betty and Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip?
SMITH Style-wise, it's spot-on. It's Reservoir Dogs. Wearing all black with white masks to an art heist? That's classy for a robbery. They styled Virginia Madsen to a T: Even though her clothing says suburban mom, the fact that her shirts don't quite button over her boobs speaks to her dark past.
UGLY BETTY Betty is a diamond in the rough, and her clothes say that about her. You could make her wardrobe cool by updating everything she wears. Like, wedges are in, but her wedge is a grandma orthopedic shoe. She's just a little off, and that's what's charming about her style. Marc Jacobs would have a field day with her.
STUDIO 60 Matthew Perry looks like the quintessential cynical comedy writer in expensive but rumpled clothes. But I don't buy Amanda Peet as a network president. I'd make her over before Betty. They're dressing Amanda Peet, the young, hip actress, not a studio exec out to prove herself. It's called a suit: Look into it.
Saved by the Bell Reunion
The hookups, the meltdowns, the memoires
The case reveals what was really going on what they think of each other now!
