It’s been more than a decade since “30 Rock” went off the air, leaving a vast void in the TV comedy landscape that’s left us more depressed than Jenna Maroney without a microphone and an adoring audience. But now, thankfully, there’s hope.
“30 Rock” veteran Tracy Morgan is back with a new NBC sitcom, “The Fall and Rise of Reggie Dinkins,” premiering this Monday, February 23 at 8 pm. And die-hard “30 Rock” fanatics — like me — will find a lot to love about the show right away. (I’ve seen the first three episodes, for the record.)
Morgan stars as Reggie Dinkins, a disgraced former football star who is eyeing a comeback in the public eye. So he hires acclaimed documentary filmmaker Arthur Tobin (played by Daniel Radcliffe) to follow him around and film a glowing documentary about him to rebuild his image. Reggie’s ex-wife Monica (played by “Living Single” alum Erika Alexander) still tries to keep him in line as his business manager, and his pal Rusty (played by “SNL” veteran Bobby Moynihan) is still riding the last remaining shreds of Reggie’s coattails.
If you’re a “30 Rock” fan — and why wouldn’t you be? You have two ears and a heart, don’t you? — we’ve got five reasons for you to add “Reggie Dinkins” to your watchlist. (In between “30 Rock” rewatches, of course.)
1. The punchlines come fast and furious
“30 Rock” writers Robert Carlock and Sam Means co-created “Reggie Dinkins” and serve as co-showrunners, and Tina Fey is one of the executive producers, too. That should tell you all you need to know: “Reggie Dinkins” is absolutely cut from the same comedic cloth as “30 Rock,” throwing punchlines at us at a relentless pace and effortlessly mixing smart jokes with dumb ones.
Reggie’s ridiculously lavish lifestyle is a rich source of humor here: Among his prized possessions are a samurai sword from the Tom Cruise movie “The Last Samurai”… and a football made out of Miss Piggy. Plus, he has a selfie-happy girlfriend named Brina, played by “Queens” alum Precious Way, who has an air of oblivious superficiality that naturally reminds us of one Jenna Maroney. (Although she might secretly be more savvy than Jenna ever was.) Bottom line: If you enjoy being buried in an avalanche of jokes, “30 Rock”-style, “Reggie Dinkins” has you covered.
2. Tracy Morgan is back in Tracy Jordan mode
As entitled comedian Tracy Jordan on “30 Rock,” Tracy Morgan established a crude, zany, so-dumb-he’s-brilliant comedy persona that has served him well ever since — and he puts that to perfect use here as entitled football legend Reggie Dinkins. Just like Tracy Jordan, Reggie will dazzle you with his keen insight one minute and then confound you with his staggering ignorance the next. (In the premiere, he surprises Arthur by rattling off a word’s Latin origin… and then admits he “took Latin in college because I thought it would help me meet Dominican chicks.”)
“30 Rock” fans can recite quotable Tracy Jordan gems by heart, and Morgan delivers a healthy dose of them in “Reggie Dinkins,” too. (While helping his son Carmelo study, he exclaims, “Books are brain movies!”) Reggie’s overly inflated social status and puppy-dog innocence let Morgan do what he does best: make us laugh hysterically, mostly.
3. Arthur and Monica are both kind of the new Liz Lemon
Every good Tracy Morgan character needs someone responsible (read: boring) to keep him from flying completely off the rails, and “Reggie Dinkins” has two, actually: documentary filmmaker Arthur, played by Daniel Radcliffe, and his ex-wife Monica, played by Erika Alexander, who now serves as Reggie’s business manager. Both of them fill the “30 Rock” Liz Lemon role of rolling their eyes at Reggie while doing their best to reconcile his warped worldview with our shared reality.
Like Liz, though, both Arthur and Monica are far from perfect. Arthur wrecked a promising filmmaking career by having a very public meltdown on the set of a Marvel movie, and now he needs Reggie’s movie to salvage his own reputation. Meanwhile, Monica is still fiercely protective of Reggie, despite his many glaring flaws, and turns down a lucrative agency offer to help Reggie along the comeback trail. So they all sort of need each other in a weird, sweetly dysfunctional way… just like the “TGS” crew did on “30 Rock.”
4. We get plenty of celebrity guest stars
“30 Rock” became a haven for big-name guest stars across its seven-season run on NBC, with luminaries like Oprah Winfrey and Jennifer Aniston stopping by. And “Reggie Dinkins” is already rolling out the red carpet, with stars like Megan Thee Stallion, Craig Robinson, “SNL” alum Heidi Gardner, and Anna Camp all booked to appear in Season 1.
Megan Thee Stallion is set to play Denise, a recently divorced mom who strikes up a flirtation with Daniel Radcliffe’s Arthur (!). Robinson will play Jerry Basmati, Reggie’s hated rival from his NFL playing days who still nurses a grudge against him, and Gardner plays Jerry’s glamorous wife Tisha, who has longstanding beef with Monica. Camp, meanwhile, plays the perfectly named Narcissa Ocean, Arthur’s wild-child ex who led to his public meltdown. And we have to think that Tina Fey is going to pop up at some point to play a random celebrity, don’t we? (Fingers crossed.)
5. It directly connects to the 30 Rock universe
Yes, “Reggie Dinkins” showrunners Robert Carlock and Sam Means have confirmed that the new show takes place in the same universe as “30 Rock” — and are already dropping in a number of Easter eggs for eagle-eyed fans to catch.
In one early episode, a character samples a bottle of Donaghy Estates champagne, the infamously terrible wine bottled by Alec Baldwin’s “30 Rock” executive Jack Donaghy. And later in the season, we’ll see that Reggie’s office is across the hall from a door that reads Sheinhardt Wig Company, the corporate conglomerate that owns NBC on “30 Rock.”
How far will these references go? Will we see Tracy Jordan play Reggie Dinkins in a quickie TV movie dramatizing his scandal? Will Kenneth the Page somehow wander into Reggie’s world? We can’t say for sure… but we’ll happily keep an eye out for those Easter eggs all season long.