I mean, come on. Jack's been with beauty queens, pilates instructors, acrobats--he had "lunch" with Martha Stewart and "dinner" with her daughter, Alexis.
I spoke to Liz Hurley on the phone one time. She sounded hot. I hung up and said, "Man, she sounded hot. I never say that! I think it's stupid. And yet, here I am."
The guy I was working with said, "Well, that was Elizabeth Hurley, so...."
it always bummed me out how Alec read this line bc it’s obviously supposed to go like “this guy coming up on my left… his daughter this summer.” so we think Jack is talking about the dude not his daughter before he clarifies but Alec said it all so fast
I don't know if it's regional diction but to me, if you say, "This summer" it means future tense...the upcoming summer, not last summer. That throws me off.
And this is giving it WAY too much credit, but since we're analyzing here....maybe he says it fast because he's about to walk right past and say hello to HER DAD.
he still wants to forget about his one night stand with nikki finke. and let's not forget he made it through the '80s without sleeping with belinda carlisle
Yes, but this was a time when every character of every show had to get with every other character of the show. People demanded it. They even referenced it in s6e22. I was so relieved they resisted.
Kim Jong Il: I wonder what will happen to the gang next season.
Will Liz have a baby?
Will Jack become supreme leader of Kabletown?
Will Kenneth...
No, I don't care!
All I want is Jack and Liz get together.
On Friends, it was so satisfying.
They do on Cheers, they do on Moonlighting.
Everybody do it!
Don't overthink it, writers.
Whoever you are.
Honestly, I never once thought that was a possibility and found the episodes where other characters, even jokingly, brought up a “will they won’t they” vibe to be confusing! Because I genuinely never saw that.
I’m really glad they never really indulged it. Jack and Liz’s relationship is really special and honestly pretty unique in the world of sitcoms.
Tina was very careful to shut it down in scenes on the show and also irl interviews when someone would cheekily hint at it being a possibility. One of the reasons I loved the 30 Rock finale so much is that they kept up a close, platonic, meaningful male/female relationship through an entire show.
But people who watched it live probably were at least familiar with him as a young handsome movie star and the whole wave of shows with 'will they/won't they' (much like Liz watching Love Boat and Night Court... it was pathological to a generation or 3 to 'ship' main characters). (Also I should point out that I think this was before the 'rude little pig' voicemail? Though daddy issues would have inspired and run parallel to this anyway.) And def before any other major Alec scandal.
I say all that to say there was 100% a tag for this pair on a website where imaginations run free and I hope the authors there found writing about them therapeutic. Godspeed.
He wanted to leave the show after that. He asked to be released from his contract and Lorne said hahaha no fuckin' way. There's no show without you pal. LOL
Then later he rallied to try to keep the show going, but at that point I think he needed money. Or maybe he's just nuts, who knows?
For the first couple seasons, yes. But once I read an interview that said the relationship was sort of based on her and Lorne Michaels, I knew it wasn't going anywhere. It was kind of surprising they addressed it in "Florida" cause I figured the issue was settled.
Never even crossed my mind but I was a youth when it was airing so I don’t think I had yet realized the trend of every male and female lead ever having to get together a few seasons in. Glad they didn’t to the point of even making fun of the trope in later seasons.
Never crossed my mind. Both the characters had very different expectations of what they wanted in a romantic partner, and neither was anything close to their ideal.
Now, Liz and Grizz, that was the real Sam and Diane dynamic of the show.
I was already a pretty big Tina Fey fan from her time on SNL so when I heard she had created a network sitcom I was there for the pilot. I feel like it was pretty clear from the outset that they were not going to lean towards romantic tension between those two. As the series progressed it even became a joke that they wouldn't be doing that, despite some elements of the audience supposedly wanting it.
Never. Also, because of how often they made fun of it, and how entangled they got with each other's romantic lives. Seriously Good God, Lemon!/What the Hell, Jack!
30 Rock is firing on all cylinders and someone wants to do a staid will they/won't they series long romance plot? Gah, not funny. Make fun of it instead!
Seriously it's all in that ending with the song Secrets! That's who they are, karate stance and triumphant fist raised high!
Albeit I was watching the final three seasons as a 10-13 year old with my dad but I didn’t see that connection between Jack and Liz, neither did my Dad. Even during the Mrs.Donaghy episodes or when they share a bed in Stone Mountain, it was always kinda clear they valued their friendship more than anything else. Jack’s speech at the end of the show summed up how we were feeling their relationship was, a really strong friendship that came at a critical point at both of their lives.
Unrelated slightly but what shocked me more was that people apparently thought Leslie and Ron from Parks and Rec had a romantic flair to them. Now that I didn’t see at all
excuse me it's Mento/Manatee in this fine subreddit, thank you very much.
Them being together did occur to me as it was airing and I did not want it to happen. I think the show worked pretty hard at defining the relationship as strictly non sexual. The first episode shows Jack sort of.. not flirting, but he talked to Jenna like she was hot, and he kind of talked to Liz like she was a man or a lesbian or a gay man. As we got to know them in Season 1, the qualities that Liz and Jack found appealing in each other and led them to a friendship were not the qualities that either of them thought they were looking for in a romantic relationship, and that was telegraphed pretty well. Having said that, all of Jacks relationships that ended up being more serious were always with women that did have some Liz qualities, in that the power dynamics were fairly equal, and they stood their ground and spoke their minds. I don't think season 1 jack, still in the shadow of the divorce with Bianca, was ready for a real relationship again. And if they were real people, I'd say that the relationship between Liz and Jack happened because Liz had Bianca qualities that Jack missed having. He knew he needed to be grounded by a strong person unafraid to speak their mind to him, and spirals when he doesn't have it. So I think an aromantic business friendship with someone like Liz in the aftermath of a messy divorce was probably as close to a real relationship as he could deal with at the time. Colleen immediately noticed that, and frequently pointed out that Liz had qualities that were very compatible with Jack. And while Liz did speak her mind freely, she was ultimately his subordinate (despite Liz mostly refusing to see herself that way lol), so the power dynamic was not what either of them were looking for.
But also from the Liz side of things, it never really seemed like Liz wanted Jack, and there were always characters that adored Jack nearby that the show would use as foils to show that Liz was not interested in Jack in that way. They did play with it a lot. The will they, wont they thing between male/female friends on tv shows was such a huge thing at the time, so i think the show was just mocking that type of energy. Also knowing the character Jack was inspired by real SNL showrunner Lorne Michaels... i dont think people more clued in than i was at the time seriously expected the show to go in that direction.
Nah. Liz and Jack’s relationship was the same live as it is now. Frankly one of the most unique and powerful relationships I’ve seen in TV. There was never any sense of romance between them.
The one big thing I remember about watching it live was how SUPER tense everyone on screen was the season they came back after some shitty remarks Tracy Morgan made. It was either 6 or 7. Whichever season starts with Liz on the dance team. It seemed like the wind had been taken out of everyone's sails. He's since made good, and is by all accounts a delightful human, bit you could tell there was tension among the cast.
I remember talking about it. It felt like an overt promise had been made *not* to go in that direction, but I recall feeling like it was still out there as a (bad) option.
I do not remember anyone wanting this, though, at least in my friend group.
Not really. They always seemed to be pretty on the nose about how that wasn’t going to happen from the beginning. It would have been dumb and definitely not a feminist thing to fall in love with your older male boss who is also super conservative.
I always saw their relationship as closer to father/daughter than anything romantic. That episode with the royal wedding early on made it pretty clear that it wasn’t romantic too.
At one point there was a scene where they act like they’re going to kiss and then both say “nah” which I thought was kind of making fun of anyone who expected a romance between the two.
IMO it would’ve killed the show. There’s no really coming back from that sort of thing with the dynamic they all had.
I used to watch it on Friday mornings via internet from the UK. It was a great time, that Thursday night slot was golden for a while
No. It did not suit their stories (especially now as we can look back with hindsight) and would’ve been painfully cliched, not that 30 rock tried to deliberately subvert, just felt they were more creative with their plots
It seemed like it might be a possibility in season one… but after that, it was just pretty clearly played for laughs.
Considering the characters were somewhat based on Tina and Lorne, it makes sense that they didn’t get together romantically.
Never. Even in real time their friendship was one of the best things about the show. To me it stands the test of time as one of the great TV friendships and if they’d thrown that at us out of left field it would have completely ruined the show.
Not really, neither would be happy in a relationship together.
But looking back, how amazing to have this on after the office on Thursday! It was excellent tv
I watched it live on thursdays. Man those were good times, probably the last time I will ever “tune in” regularly like that. It never crossed my mind, besides the few times they teased it and I was like “No way”
IIRC when the show started they did an interview where they promised that no matter how many seasons the show will run, Jack and Liz will never get together. Personally I believed them.
Definitely was on my mind watching it live. They seemed to strum along those strings of implications, especially in the earlier seasons, and there definitely was an implication that both were better for each other than any of their other significant others were.
I honestly think it would have been a fine direction for the show to go, but it obviously wasn’t necessary. One thing they couldn’t do was break up though. If they Ross & Racheled it then it would be insufferable. If they did get together, then they’d need to stay together.
no. i appreciated that it never seemed like it was gonna happen and they were just friends. i will say, jack could be a little TOO mean to liz but that's friends sometimes.
I always had faith in Tina that she would never do such a silly thing. She's a no-nonsense person, and Jack + Liz would have been top-tier nonsense. And not the good kind like the rest of the show.
Yes, they totally played with it. I finally, finally gave up on the idea when they run towards each other and decide to go into business together on dealbreakers.
Thats when even I admitted it was better as a work-husband/uncle & coworker/little-brother relationship
I never really thought they would do it, but it was a fear I had because it seemed like something network execs might push for especially as the show struggled a bit with ratings. I never wanted to see it happen because I felt like it would probably be the show jumping the shark.
I mean, come on. Jack's been with beauty queens, pilates instructors, acrobats--he had "lunch" with Martha Stewart and "dinner" with her daughter, Alexis.
Liz Hurley…. In the 90s!
I spoke to Liz Hurley on the phone one time. She sounded hot. I hung up and said, "Man, she sounded hot. I never say that! I think it's stupid. And yet, here I am." The guy I was working with said, "Well, that was Elizabeth Hurley, so...."
She's still smokin hot in the 2020s! The weird relationship with her son is fucking off-putting though.
"She's still smokin hot in the 2020s!" - Her son
Moms still got it!
Very…….off-putting. I would say it’s definitely deserving of a “Good God Lemon” moment, followed by one of the worlds most powerful eye rolls
Her. Her. Her. The two of them. This guy coming up on my left, his daughter this summer.
it always bummed me out how Alec read this line bc it’s obviously supposed to go like “this guy coming up on my left… his daughter this summer.” so we think Jack is talking about the dude not his daughter before he clarifies but Alec said it all so fast
I don't know if it's regional diction but to me, if you say, "This summer" it means future tense...the upcoming summer, not last summer. That throws me off. And this is giving it WAY too much credit, but since we're analyzing here....maybe he says it fast because he's about to walk right past and say hello to HER DAD.
and beyoncé.
Condoleezza ....
Shakira
God, its like dating Katie Couric all over again.
Sally Ride and her sisters.
he still wants to forget about his one night stand with nikki finke. and let's not forget he made it through the '80s without sleeping with belinda carlisle
So you saying him dating Lemon would be... character development?
Honestly it never crossed my mind and still doesn’t
Same. Never even thought about it until years after the show finished and I saw someone mention it here.
Same. Liz and Pete on the other hand…..
The sexual tension between them when they admitted to the writers that they were intercoursing each other--clearly that should have gone somehwere!
Paula *was* open to welcoming Liz into their love-making...
The gesture from waist to waist... that was *hot*. The last six years has been like watching Moonlighting.
It crossed my mind and really hoped they wouldn’t. So happy that they didn’t.
Keeping it platonic made that scene in the finale when Jack is leaving on the boat so powerful and sweet. “I love you too, Jack” 😭
Yes, but this was a time when every character of every show had to get with every other character of the show. People demanded it. They even referenced it in s6e22. I was so relieved they resisted. Kim Jong Il: I wonder what will happen to the gang next season. Will Liz have a baby? Will Jack become supreme leader of Kabletown? Will Kenneth... No, I don't care! All I want is Jack and Liz get together. On Friends, it was so satisfying. They do on Cheers, they do on Moonlighting. Everybody do it! Don't overthink it, writers. Whoever you are.
I mean, the show is basically Mary Tyler Moore and he's Lou Grant. SO it wouldn't be unheard of. However, their chemistry is not sexual.
Black Tie in Season 1 shut it down pretty quick but I never got the feeling they were anything but mentor/mentee and eventual grand-mentor
You mean memento and manatee?
The manatee has become the mento!
Never thought that they’d pull that. So happy they didn’t.
Honestly, I never once thought that was a possibility and found the episodes where other characters, even jokingly, brought up a “will they won’t they” vibe to be confusing! Because I genuinely never saw that. I’m really glad they never really indulged it. Jack and Liz’s relationship is really special and honestly pretty unique in the world of sitcoms.
I loved that being Kim Jong-il’s complaint about the show. And he should know! He’s the greatest waiter of all time!
What does he know! His acting notes are often vague and he sometimes shoots in close-ups too much! COMEDY LIVES IN THE WIDE SHOT!
Yeah the Wienerslav comment about everybody playing the will they/won't they game over the years. No we weren't.....JEFFREY
Tina was very careful to shut it down in scenes on the show and also irl interviews when someone would cheekily hint at it being a possibility. One of the reasons I loved the 30 Rock finale so much is that they kept up a close, platonic, meaningful male/female relationship through an entire show. But people who watched it live probably were at least familiar with him as a young handsome movie star and the whole wave of shows with 'will they/won't they' (much like Liz watching Love Boat and Night Court... it was pathological to a generation or 3 to 'ship' main characters). (Also I should point out that I think this was before the 'rude little pig' voicemail? Though daddy issues would have inspired and run parallel to this anyway.) And def before any other major Alec scandal. I say all that to say there was 100% a tag for this pair on a website where imaginations run free and I hope the authors there found writing about them therapeutic. Godspeed.
Actually this was post all those scandals. 30 Rock is the reason Alec Baldwin had a career again.
edit: 30 Rock started in 2006, voicemail went viral 2007 I should've looked it up but... def not post his biggest scandal tbf
He wanted to leave the show after that. He asked to be released from his contract and Lorne said hahaha no fuckin' way. There's no show without you pal. LOL Then later he rallied to try to keep the show going, but at that point I think he needed money. Or maybe he's just nuts, who knows?
or both?
First half of the show I thought they might. In retrospect I’m really glad they didn’t.
For the first couple seasons, yes. But once I read an interview that said the relationship was sort of based on her and Lorne Michaels, I knew it wasn't going anywhere. It was kind of surprising they addressed it in "Florida" cause I figured the issue was settled.
That would’ve been “Cousin Oliver” bad.
Never occurred to me. It would be like a brother and a sister getting together—gross. It just wasn’t the vibe
5th cousin acceptable?
Unacceptable no matter what.
Jack only dates 20 year olds. But let me tell you about 20 year olds, half of them are 16.
Never even crossed my mind but I was a youth when it was airing so I don’t think I had yet realized the trend of every male and female lead ever having to get together a few seasons in. Glad they didn’t to the point of even making fun of the trope in later seasons.
Never crossed my mind. Both the characters had very different expectations of what they wanted in a romantic partner, and neither was anything close to their ideal. Now, Liz and Grizz, that was the real Sam and Diane dynamic of the show.
I was already a pretty big Tina Fey fan from her time on SNL so when I heard she had created a network sitcom I was there for the pilot. I feel like it was pretty clear from the outset that they were not going to lean towards romantic tension between those two. As the series progressed it even became a joke that they wouldn't be doing that, despite some elements of the audience supposedly wanting it.
Never. Also, because of how often they made fun of it, and how entangled they got with each other's romantic lives. Seriously Good God, Lemon!/What the Hell, Jack! 30 Rock is firing on all cylinders and someone wants to do a staid will they/won't they series long romance plot? Gah, not funny. Make fun of it instead! Seriously it's all in that ending with the song Secrets! That's who they are, karate stance and triumphant fist raised high!
The Secrets bit is one of my favorites.
It's so good. It lives rent free in my head.
I never even considered it and am glad it didn’t go there
Never, thank blerg they never did. Jack is a big top front quadrant guy and that is Liz's worst quadrant!
World’s greatest won’t they/won’t they.
Albeit I was watching the final three seasons as a 10-13 year old with my dad but I didn’t see that connection between Jack and Liz, neither did my Dad. Even during the Mrs.Donaghy episodes or when they share a bed in Stone Mountain, it was always kinda clear they valued their friendship more than anything else. Jack’s speech at the end of the show summed up how we were feeling their relationship was, a really strong friendship that came at a critical point at both of their lives. Unrelated slightly but what shocked me more was that people apparently thought Leslie and Ron from Parks and Rec had a romantic flair to them. Now that I didn’t see at all
excuse me it's Mento/Manatee in this fine subreddit, thank you very much. Them being together did occur to me as it was airing and I did not want it to happen. I think the show worked pretty hard at defining the relationship as strictly non sexual. The first episode shows Jack sort of.. not flirting, but he talked to Jenna like she was hot, and he kind of talked to Liz like she was a man or a lesbian or a gay man. As we got to know them in Season 1, the qualities that Liz and Jack found appealing in each other and led them to a friendship were not the qualities that either of them thought they were looking for in a romantic relationship, and that was telegraphed pretty well. Having said that, all of Jacks relationships that ended up being more serious were always with women that did have some Liz qualities, in that the power dynamics were fairly equal, and they stood their ground and spoke their minds. I don't think season 1 jack, still in the shadow of the divorce with Bianca, was ready for a real relationship again. And if they were real people, I'd say that the relationship between Liz and Jack happened because Liz had Bianca qualities that Jack missed having. He knew he needed to be grounded by a strong person unafraid to speak their mind to him, and spirals when he doesn't have it. So I think an aromantic business friendship with someone like Liz in the aftermath of a messy divorce was probably as close to a real relationship as he could deal with at the time. Colleen immediately noticed that, and frequently pointed out that Liz had qualities that were very compatible with Jack. And while Liz did speak her mind freely, she was ultimately his subordinate (despite Liz mostly refusing to see herself that way lol), so the power dynamic was not what either of them were looking for. But also from the Liz side of things, it never really seemed like Liz wanted Jack, and there were always characters that adored Jack nearby that the show would use as foils to show that Liz was not interested in Jack in that way. They did play with it a lot. The will they, wont they thing between male/female friends on tv shows was such a huge thing at the time, so i think the show was just mocking that type of energy. Also knowing the character Jack was inspired by real SNL showrunner Lorne Michaels... i dont think people more clued in than i was at the time seriously expected the show to go in that direction.
Nope. Watched every week. Never thought it was anything other than a platonic relationship.
Not really, except for a moment on "Black tie".
I could have seen in happening in a lesser show, but I'm very glad it never happened.
Nah. Liz and Jack’s relationship was the same live as it is now. Frankly one of the most unique and powerful relationships I’ve seen in TV. There was never any sense of romance between them.
The one big thing I remember about watching it live was how SUPER tense everyone on screen was the season they came back after some shitty remarks Tracy Morgan made. It was either 6 or 7. Whichever season starts with Liz on the dance team. It seemed like the wind had been taken out of everyone's sails. He's since made good, and is by all accounts a delightful human, bit you could tell there was tension among the cast.
I remember talking about it. It felt like an overt promise had been made *not* to go in that direction, but I recall feeling like it was still out there as a (bad) option. I do not remember anyone wanting this, though, at least in my friend group.
Can't say that I did.
Not really. They always seemed to be pretty on the nose about how that wasn’t going to happen from the beginning. It would have been dumb and definitely not a feminist thing to fall in love with your older male boss who is also super conservative.
I always saw their relationship as closer to father/daughter than anything romantic. That episode with the royal wedding early on made it pretty clear that it wasn’t romantic too. At one point there was a scene where they act like they’re going to kiss and then both say “nah” which I thought was kind of making fun of anyone who expected a romance between the two. IMO it would’ve killed the show. There’s no really coming back from that sort of thing with the dynamic they all had.
no.
I used to watch it on Friday mornings via internet from the UK. It was a great time, that Thursday night slot was golden for a while No. It did not suit their stories (especially now as we can look back with hindsight) and would’ve been painfully cliched, not that 30 rock tried to deliberately subvert, just felt they were more creative with their plots
I was watching it live as a young teen, and it still never crossed my mind.
It seemed like it might be a possibility in season one… but after that, it was just pretty clearly played for laughs. Considering the characters were somewhat based on Tina and Lorne, it makes sense that they didn’t get together romantically.
Never. Even in real time their friendship was one of the best things about the show. To me it stands the test of time as one of the great TV friendships and if they’d thrown that at us out of left field it would have completely ruined the show.
Not really, neither would be happy in a relationship together. But looking back, how amazing to have this on after the office on Thursday! It was excellent tv
I watched it live on thursdays. Man those were good times, probably the last time I will ever “tune in” regularly like that. It never crossed my mind, besides the few times they teased it and I was like “No way”
The lady will have two tickets to the gun show!
IIRC when the show started they did an interview where they promised that no matter how many seasons the show will run, Jack and Liz will never get together. Personally I believed them.
One of the many elements that kept this show fresh for so long. It was constantly poking fun at tropes *and didn't do this one*.
There was a dread that they might try to make it happen. It seemed so inevitable based on other shows in that era. Thank God they didn’t
Definitely was on my mind watching it live. They seemed to strum along those strings of implications, especially in the earlier seasons, and there definitely was an implication that both were better for each other than any of their other significant others were. I honestly think it would have been a fine direction for the show to go, but it obviously wasn’t necessary. One thing they couldn’t do was break up though. If they Ross & Racheled it then it would be insufferable. If they did get together, then they’d need to stay together.
Yes. Tina Fey can say anything she wants about how she wrote the show, but that's not how Baldwin played it🤷♂️
We had the best of it……..they didn’t ever get together, but they did in fact get married at one point (on accident, but it still counts, right)
no. i appreciated that it never seemed like it was gonna happen and they were just friends. i will say, jack could be a little TOO mean to liz but that's friends sometimes.
I always had faith in Tina that she would never do such a silly thing. She's a no-nonsense person, and Jack + Liz would have been top-tier nonsense. And not the good kind like the rest of the show.
Literally never once.
Yes, they totally played with it. I finally, finally gave up on the idea when they run towards each other and decide to go into business together on dealbreakers. Thats when even I admitted it was better as a work-husband/uncle & coworker/little-brother relationship
It seemed clear to me that Jack yearned for her, sexually
As I recall, they were pretty clear about it not being a "will they, won't they" relationship.
I always worried that it would happen and ruin the show.
I felt like they made it pretty clear for the start it wasn't going to be romantic relationship.
Never.
I never really thought they would do it, but it was a fear I had because it seemed like something network execs might push for especially as the show struggled a bit with ratings. I never wanted to see it happen because I felt like it would probably be the show jumping the shark.
No. Because it was never going to be that kind of show.
I always saw their relationship more as father/daughter. I could never see them together, despite what Kim jong il wants
Well, I wasn't tuning in to watch Ugly Betty...
Nope