“We’re used to always feeling like tomorrow’s going to be the last day, so it hasn’t felt too different.”
30 Rock, a critical and cultural hit that nobody thought would make it, will take its final curtain call at the end of this season, after seven years on the air. There have been ups (three Outstanding Comedy Series wins, numerous acting awards, “best of” lists) and downs (three seasons ranking out of the top 100 for ratings, shut-outs at the Emmys), yet the quirky comedy persevered through all of it to become one of the most loved shows of the new millennium.
Executive producer Robert Carlock truly believes this season is just another go-around and says that they’re “trying to sort of do just normal 30 Rock stories and while at the same time driving towards endings for everybody.”
Jack McBrayer, who plays a fan favorite, the lovably naïve Kenneth Parcell, admits that there is a slight difference this season.
“But it is weird like knowing that there are finite episodes and stuff,” he says. “To me it kind of feels like your senior year of high school where you’re having fun and, ‘Oh it doesn’t matter, I already got into college and just things don’t matter.’ But you know that there on graduation day, you’re going to be choking back tears and hugging people that you never even spoke to, but it has been great fun and business as usual so far but, you know, towards the end it’s going to get real emotional.”
For as emotional as it is going to get, both McBrayer and Carlock admit the show wouldn’t be anything without the creative genius behind it and that Tina Fey will dictate how everyone acts—not only on screen, but the demeanor behind the scenes as well. Over the course of the past six years, anyone attached to the show would speak of Fey as if she were a goddess. Even as the show is coming to an end, Fey still won’t quit giving it her all every second of the day.