Adios, Dummies: 30 Rock wrapping up its final season

After seven seasons, the hit NBC comedy 30 Rock is finally coming to a close. If you haven't seen it, the show is about Liz Lemon, played by Tina Fey, and her time as headwriter for the live-action TV show The Girly Show (TGS) with Tracy Jordan. It's loosely based off Fey's time as headwriter for SNL, which is shot in the 30 Rockefeller Plaza in New York, which is where the title comes from. Despite poor ratings, the show is critically acclaimed, and has been nominated for tens of Emmys.
Also, it's just hilarious.

Man, I'm so sad it's ending.

The thing about 30 Rock is that it's one of the most well balanced comedy shows of all time. It can punch out 30 snarky, sassy one-liners with incredible insightfulness in under two minutes, and it it can utilize even fart-humor into comedy gold. With most episodes about 21 minutes long, it's actually pretty amazing just how many jokes they can get out within the timeframe. It gets so much done while still carrying out the basic plot, but still maintains emphasis on what a good sitcom is supposed to do: make you laugh.

I love the witty, intelligent, and terribly subtle social commentary jokes that they slip in there. The last episode I watched was "My Whole Life is Thunder", where Liz wins an award for Women in Comedy under 80 aka not Bettty White. During the scene Liz gets in a fight with her best friend about her getting married the day before, to which all the women try to get in their two cents.
Liz: "Why can't you ever be happy for me, ever? I got married, and you don't care."
Random woman in crowd, starts yelling: "Why should she? We shouldn't be defining ourselves by men!?"
Random woman number two: "Oh, so in order to be independent, we have to be asexual?!"
Random woman number three: "You would know, Judy."
Random woman number four: "God, I miss Gary so much! I put his sweater on a body pillow! [moans]. I took it on a canoe ride!"
*Crowd erupts into chaos*.

It was a small moment that lasted less than a minute, but it poked fun at very real and very current feminist movements going on in a light-mannered but honest way. You have to be so careful not to laugh too loud at everything (an impossible task) because the jokes are so sure-fire and concise and fast. Many shows attempt that kind of humor, but usually in a sardonic and with an "I'm too cool for this kind of vibe" like Daria and Gilmore Girls. Family Guy does a good job at this, but there jokes are often...distasteful, and less clever than offensive. 30 Rock is not always PC but it always tries to get to the heart of the matter----and that's why it's funny.

God Bless 30 Rock.  Time to find something to fill in the empty hole it will leave in my heart.