Looks terrific, right! And sort of intriguing that not every musical number will be strictly in the format of the club's performances. No, it looks as though we might get some Rob Marshall/Chicago-style fantasy songs. Which is fun! And fresh, for television. Hopefully High School Musical kids, now a little grown up, will appreciate this next step in their evolution.

Last three from AP, all the rest from Getty

It was kind of an obvious pick up at this point, considering its creator and star Tina Fey is just about the only NBC-related thing that people talk about these days. The rest of their lineup, while earning higher ratings, is mostly forgettable and un-buzzworthy. But this is a big change for a show—which still, despite the zeitgeist, languishes in critically-beloved-yet-relatively-low-ratings land—that was a much bigger question mark at the start of the 2008-2009 TV season.

After the Writers Guild strike broke its second season in half, 30 Rock was put on cancellation watch. Though it got a third-season order, going into the fall, it looked like NBC chairman Ben Silverman had left it for dead. After plastering promos for his brilliant idea for a new series, Kath & Kim, all over the Olympics in August, he announced a precariously late premiere date for 30 Rock and the cast and crew were seemingly on the last of their second chances.

But then, a few weeks before its third season debut, Fey went supernova. She became a celebrated national darling with her infamous Sarah Palin impression on Saturday Night Live. Some wondered if she'd take that heat—the magazine covers! the interviews! the glowing, nerdy adoration!—over to Rock. It looks like she did. For now. We're curious to see how long it lasts, as Palin recedes (blessedly) farther and farther into the ruined past.

So that's good news, because the show is wonderful (last night's episode, with zombie jokes!, is below). Also good news, we hope, is that Amy Poehler's new NBC show now has an official start date. The sitcom, created by The Office's Greg Daniels, will drop on April 9th, filling the Kath & Kim slot. That Floridian comedy "may or may not" return to the airwaves (or, I guess they won't be airwaves anymore, will they?) next year. I hope it does come back, because it's actually pretty funny once you get used to its strange, muted sense of humor.

It'd be nice to call the Poehler series "promising," but we don't really know anything about, um, what it's about. (Update: Oh wait! Yes we do!) Though, rumored to be joining the SNL (and Boston College, woot) alum are splendid comedian Aziz Ansari, former Office mate Rashida Jones, maybe Poehler's hubby Will Arnett, and the "New Funny Girl" from New York Magazine's terrifically depressing "New Issue" (Ronan Farrow, swoon), Aubrey Plaza.

A choir director and his students from an "inner-city" Atlanta middle school, who became internet sensations this year for their original rap song about voting or something, were on Good Morning America this, um... morning... in America. And Teach had some big news. They have been invited to perform their new song about Obama in D.C., for some portion of the multi-day Inauguration partayin'.

The kids hooted and hollered and were, understandably!, thrilled. Meanwhile, the poor teary teacher could barely get the sentence out. It's sort of like if Corky St. Clair had won at the end of Waiting for Guffman and Red, White, & Blaine had gone to Broadway!

A young man, let's call him Ben even though that isn't actually what his name is, writes to our cruel-yet-cuddly overlord, Nick Denton:

Nick,

Have to thank you for something you aren't even aware of yet being responsible for. Last week I got engaged to my girlfriend of a few years. Your part in this? we met through the Denton media empire. [She] was a peripatetic commenter on Gawker. I read Gawker but spent most of my time on Deadspin. Reading her comments always made me laugh, so I followed a link to her blog. We corresponded, met for drinks, fell in love, moved in together and are now planning to marry. Life is good, and a tip of my hat to you, sir.

Cockles! Warmed! Congrats you two. Shine on like crazy diamonds or rubies or complete each other or whatever it is. We're still going to be here, typing away forever.

There's lots of Murray, which is great. Something about his particular New Zealand accent makes my head hurt in a good way. There is not, sadly, enough of Kristen Schaal. She has one short, funny scene but that's it. Ah well. One other complaint? They should start saying hi to me when I see them in bars. Because it happens all the time these days.

Watch the entire first episode below this sentence.

Let's just think of it like spring cleaning or an enema. Sure it's unpleasant in its way, but you'll also feel relieved and unburdened when it's over. Frankly, though it will pain me at first, I think I'll learn to live a better life without my beloved Cottage Living magazine, so you should learn to live without Survivor 43: The One Where They Finally Eat Poop. There's been talk of this phenomenon going down on Broadway—that a good purge will revitalize the medium—and maybe the same will be true of television. Look, good scripted TV shows like 30 Rock and Gossip Girl (OK, "good" is sort a of relative term there) are up! in the ratings.

So, I know it must seem catastrophic now, but it'll all work out in the end. Sometimes, things just have to burn. It's nature's way.

And next week is the big Oprah Jones appearance, which ought to attract a small legion of moms, sitting tentatively on the edge of the couch, a spare Kleenex tucked in their sleeves, their brows furrowed a bit by the confusing Tracy Morgan. But who cares if they like it, as longs as they watches it. We'll have to wait til next week to see what happens, obviously, but in the meantime, below is a fun Halloween webisode, featuring Sexy Cerie!

"Well it was a happy time because I had just found the old shoe I thought I lost and Guadalupe was mad at me because she said "Meez Tinsley ju are never pooting things a-way when I am asking you!" and so I ran out of the house and down the street and into the park and I climbed a hill and poked at the dirt with sticks for a while and looked for bugs. I didn't find any bugs because they were probably mad at me too so I left the park and ate some pizzapie and it got all on my shirt so I cried a little bit and then I went to see the Little Mermaid in Broadway and it looked like my feelings! So that made me feel better and I went home and curled up outside Guadalupe's door and in the morning she wasn't mad anymore and she made me cereal and she was humming her nice little back-home song and it was sunny and there were birds so I felt better and then the TV called and asked me to be on it so I said 'Yes I will Go!' and so I went to the beach house and they moved me in front of a movie camera and I said a few things and then it was over. Oh but I forgot the best part, when I got to the beach house I was rooting around in the old lobster traps that are under the porch and I found my shoe in one of them! Guadalupe was very happy and patted my head and said 'I will geev it a wash.' And then she made me a lemonade and sent me out to the porch to watch the seaside and I did and I drank the lemonade and looked at the ocean and I thought of the Little Mermaid and how it was sad that she didn't like where she lived or the people she lived with because I do, very much, every day."

The crazypants Christian town/last stand fall back point for the inevitable holy war was perched high atop a mountain in Virginia and included something called a "clubhouse." No one wanted to live there because, in actual real life, people like to have kinky sex and smoke pot and watch French art films and don't really want to do that in Falwell Acres. The abandoned hamlet is now used for SWAT team practice. Hope the weather's nice down there, Jer. [NYDN]

If you said, "In order to train employees to provide better customer service and a more consistent quality of coffee beverages for me, the consumer, to enjoy," then congratulations. This is supposedly the correct answer.

If you said "Maybe to talk about the outbreak of hand herpes among the workers?" then you really need to start getting your news from media outlets of a higher caliber.

Pissed at the news, Starbucks threw a tantrum, dropping "Happy Planet" as a juice partner and signing on with fellow soulless corporate behemoth Pepsi instead [Vancouver Sun]. "We hate happy things," said Starbucks in my imagination.