30 Rock: Breaking the Rules of Sitcom Writing

Many a stuffy comedy critic will tell you that to make a great sitcom, there are certain rules you have to follow. You can’t overload the show with superfluous characters, drop narrative trails unexpectedly, or ignore the comedy appeal of the situation itself. Such a show, they would claim, would simply never work.
There have been, of course, any number of sitcoms in recent years that have pushed the envelope in different ways. They have generally sprung from this side More


