NBC turns camera inward this fall

NEW YORK — When NBC's fall schedule was announced last month, two of its half-dozen new series stood out: the Tina Fey-starring comedy, "30 Rock," and the Aaron Sorkin drama, "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip."

Both look behind-the-scenes at a sketch-comedy show not unlike NBC's own long-running "Saturday Night Live." Jointly, "Studio 60" and "30 Rock" (one of whose executive producers is "SNL" boss Lorne Michaels) are reaching new heights in network narcissism: One-third of NBC's freshman slate is about NBC.

"Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip" is a richly filmed hour with a large ensemble cast on the order of "The West Wing," which Sorkin also created.

The pilot begins with a clash between a network censor and the executive producer of "Studio 60" — a live late-night series that differs from "SNL" principally in that it airs from Hollywood (not New York) on Fridays (not Saturdays) on the National Broadcasting System (not the National Broadcasting Company).

The producer loses his power play. Moments before airtime, the politically sensitive sketch he was fighting for is yanked.

He is fed up. Stepping in front of the camera, he warns viewers, "It's not going to be a very good show tonight and I think you should change the channel." Eventually, he's cut off. Then he's fired.

How to save the show and redeem the network? NBS' president (Amanda Peet) has a brainstorm: Sign the brilliant bad-boy writing partners (played by Matthew Perry and Bradley Whitford) who were canned from "Studio 60" years earlier, then got big making movies.

Hiring them back to run the show, she reasons, "is a tacit admission of guilt and a silent act of contrition, and that's what's required here."

"30 Rock" hits even closer to home. Literally. The title refers to 30 Rockefeller Plaza, home of NBC Universal and corporate parent General Electric — and, like the real-life "SNL," home to "The Girlie Show," a live sketch-comedy program whose head writer is Liz Lemon (played by Fey, herself an "SNL" veteran).

In the current version of the "30 Rock" pilot viewers learn that, after just five weeks, "The Girlie Show" has scored good reviews and robust ratings.

Even so, Liz is summoned to the office of Jack Donaghy (played by Alec Baldwin), who introduces himself as new VP of Development for NBC-GE-Universal-Kmart.

This triggers the obvious question: Does the company now own Kmart?

"No," Jack replies. "So why are you dressed like we do?"

Then he changes the subject to "my greatest triumph," the real-life GE Trivection Oven, delivering a pitch for how it cooks food faster and better.

"With three kinds of heat," he sums up, slyly straying from GE's official spiel to bring the subject back to TV, "you can cook a turkey in 22 minutes."

Then he claims for himself yet another job description.

"I'm the new Vice President of East Coast Television and Microwave Oven Programming." His urgent mission: retooling Liz's show, which, he fears, is "missing that third kind of heat."

What's the third kind of heat? Skewering yourself in bigger, cleverer ways than your critics can? Turning satire into product plugs and cross-promotion? Embarking on a new course of strategic narcissism?

If so, "30 Rock" and "Studio 60" could really be hot.