DVD | ‘30 Rock’ is a comedy gift that keeps giving

It’s a crazy time of year, and with the fall season starting, the deluge of TV-on-DVD releases has hit critical mass. I’ve managed to make a little time to examine the freshman outings of two acclaimed series that return with new episodes this week.

30 Rock, which won this year’s Emmy for outstanding comedy, is certainly deserving of the honor. Tina Fey mined the years she spent in the SNL writers’ room and turned them into comedy gold.

Fey is at her best here as a modern-day Mary Tyler Moore, a single career woman in television just trying to keep it all together. Jane Krakowski is great as Jenna, the ditsy blonde. Tracy Morgan is hilarious as embattled, unpredictable actor Tracy Jordan. And Alec Baldwin is hilarious and surprisingly likable in the role he was born to play.

But 30 Rock is not content to merely scratch the surface. It’s the minor details, supporting characters, and long-running jokes that really seal the deal. Jack McBrayer steals the show with his portrayal of Kenneth, the eager NBC page who genuinely loves his job as a servant to the people who make TV. And various SNL alumni, including Rachel Dratch in a variety of bizarre bit parts, are familiar faces who seem so organic to this world. Plus, there’s Tracy’s entourage, not to be trifled with.

I cannot remember when I laughed out loud this hard and this long at a television sitcom, for the reasons it was intended to be laughed at. And you have to appreciate the fourth-place network letting its own successful shows take shots at it constantly.

The first season is out now; the second premieres this Thursday at 8:30p/7:30c on NBC. And there’s a mini-marathon starting on Bravo at 1p/12c today…that’s just minutes from now.

TALK | Bonnie Hunt is coming back to TV

She’ll try her hand at yet another show, this time a talkie from Warner Bros. Domestic TV, which has distributed powerhouses like The Rosie O’Donnell Show and current hit The Ellen DeGeneres Show.

Bonnie Hunt’s talk show has received a two-year commitment from most NBC owned-and-operated stations, beginning in fall 2008. Why bet so much on someone with such a spotty TV track record? Not that NBC’s corporate stations have ever been great at risk analysis; Variety notes that this deal comes in part because of NBC’s failure to develop a successful talk show on its own, making high-profile national flops of Jane Pauley’s and Megan Mullally’s recent attempts.

As part of the deal, Warner reupped with NBC’s O&Os on two current syndication successes. Extra is renewed through 2012 and Ellen will keep talking with the NBC stations through 2011.

PASSIONS | Online streaming returns tomorrow…but it’ll cost you

You spoke up, disgruntled Passions fans, and DirecTV listened. Many fans of the nine-year-old soap can’t or won’t make the switch to DirecTV, the exclusive home of new episodes. Beginning tomorrow, you have another option: an online streaming subscription for $19.95/month.

Episodes will be streamed and archived at www.nbc.com/passions. Episodes will be posted daily after airing on The 101 and archived for eight weeks, ample time to keep up with the glacial pace of the action in Harmony.

It’s likely small comfort to many who can’t afford to shell out $20 a month for quasi-reliable online streaming for a soap they used to get on regular TV for free. Also, $20 is a little less than 1/3 of what I pay DirecTV for 200 or so channels a month, The 101 and new episodes of Passions included. But it’s better than nothing for those fans who can’t or won’t make the switch.

In other Passions news, the entertaining weekly live call-in show, Passions Live, which airs Thursday nights on The 101, has been extended for four more episodes. Host Eric Martsolf (Passions‘ Ethan) gets to keep his shirt on for at least 30 minutes a week, fielding calls and corralling his crazy castmates. This week, it was Sheridan and Gwen, McKenzie Westmore and Liza Huber (episodes are streamed online and archived at the NBC site).

PASSIONS CROSSES THE BORDER | New episodes find a new home in Canada

PRIVATE PRACTICE | 101: “In Which We Meet Addison, a Nice Girl from Somewhere Else”

I saw the Private Practice premiere. It’s no Grey’s, to be sure, but I liked it and I’m interested to see more. (Also, Grey’s was no Grey’s out of the box, something I think we’d all do well to remember while the cast and crew find their groove.)

FALL ‘07 | This season’s first hook goes to…

…Nashville. Fox has pulled its Friday night music series from the lineup, replacing it with repeats of K-Ville for the next two weeks. The show’s not technically canceled and may return after Fox’s postseason baseball concludes.

GREY’S | The big night is almost here

Season four kicks off tonight at 9p/8c. In the meantime, here’s a special Seattle Grace-themed whip:

• Shonda Rhimes and Betsy Beers talk about their spinoff and the new season
• USA Today goes behind the scenes with the cast and gets some insider tidbits
• The official site has preview clips if you can’t hold out until tonight, plus a new competitive fantasy challenge game

GREY’S | How’d it go with Addison last night?

What did you think of the retooled Private Practice premiere? I was writing a paper last night, so I DVR’d it. I’ve seen what the critics said, most of it negative. But I was wondering what you guys thought.

HEROES | Sylar is self-important

Zachary Quinto, a cast member on NBC’s Heroes, thinks his show is the most important on all of television. In an interview with the Canadian Jam Showbiz site, he says the show is far too culturally relevant to suck in season two. Witness:

It’s not just that people like to talk about our show, it’s the themes of the show. The show is about saving the world. The show is about people waking up to their own power to make a difference. It’s not like the entire world is talking about the sex scene in the shower at the hospital with the doctors, or the lawyers in the bathroom, or whatever.

Perhaps someone should tap him on the shoulder and point out that even though that’s what the show’s about, they’re not actually saving the world over there. And of course, there’s nothing classier than taking shots at the competition.

TALK | ABC claims numbers are up; Rosie takes a different ‘View’

With apologies for my absence this week, let’s get right back to it.

Variety reported earlier in the week that The View’s ratings have improved without Rosie, something ABC is of course happy to promote and encourage. But as Rosie herself and Fox News note, while overall viewership is up, demos — particularly the ones used to sell the show to advertisers — are down. In some cases, they’re way down.

Households are up 16 percent for the first two weeks of the season, sure.  But the new viewers the show’s attracting are much older than the scads of them the show is losing. Women 18-49 and women 25-54 are both down at least 8 percent, but the big loss is women 18-34. Viewership in that demo is down 19.4 percent from last year.

The good news for The View? Whoopi’s bringing in the 50+ crowd, which is up 8 percent from last year.

READ IT AND JUDGE FOR YOURSELF | Rosie O’Donnell’s new book, Celebrity Detox, streets this Tuesday, October 2. But she won’t be doing any press to promote it, in fact canceling an interview with ABC News’ Diane Sawyer. She explained the decision last week on her blog.

SPECIALS | NBC: Choirs to clash at Christmas

NBC is back in business with BBC Worldwide, a partnership that produced the dreadful Grease: You’re the One That I Want reality show last winter. The show wasn’t that great; I hear the resulting Broadway production is even worse.

So forgive me for being less than enthusiastic about Clash of the Choirs, NBC’s week-before-Christmas experiment. For four nights beginning December 17, five celebrities will return to their hometowns, assemble choirs of “everyday people,” and have a nationally televised choir-off, the winner of which will be determined by viewers’ text message and online votes.

I love Christmas music as much as (if not more than) the average person, but I think I’ll be reserving judgment on this…at least until we hear which celebrities will be involved.

ON A RELATED NOTE |  There are 92 days until Christmas 2007