Live every week like it's Shark Week.

There are two new (to us Brits at least) American comedies starting their runs on Five this coming Thursday (11th October), Californication, starring David Duchovny as a serial-shagger in Hollywood and 30 Rock, which details the goings on behind the scenes of a fictional TV comedy sketch show. I haven't seen the former, but it sounds terrible. I have no interest in seeing Duchovny (fine actor though he can be) fuck his way through a succession of starlets week after week. That kind of show would have to be, like, Seinfeld-funny for me to even give it a second look and notices from the states, whilst reservedly favourable, suggest that it ain't no Seinfeld. The latter, however, I have seen and it's quite possibly the funniest network sitcom since, ooh, Arrested Development.

Created by and starring former Saturday Night Live regular, Tina Fey, the show obviously draws on her experiences on that show but goes off on a whole 'nother, pleasingly surreal tangent. Fey plays Liz Lemon, the headstrong, yet repeatedly put-upon creator of The Girlie Show (30 Rock's show-within-a-show), who is quickly established as a highly-relatable New York singleton and career woman. She's smart, funny and unconventionally sexy, which obviously means that her love life swings between disastrous and non-existent.

If that all sounds a bit rote, well, I guess it kind of is, but the strength of the show is that, even though later episodes do focus on this, it never relies on Lemon's personal life as a plot device crutch. What makes 30 Rock a real winner is in its supporting cast. In the first episode, Lemon finds out she has a new boss, "non-genius" Jack Donaghy (the excellent Alec Baldwin), who has no background in television but doesn't let that be a bridge to him meddling as much as he can. Meddling that begins when he decides that the show needs a "third heat", aka troubled (read insane) Hollywood star, Tracy Jordan (the equally-excellent Tracy Morgan, ostensibly playing himself).

Rounding out the cast are Jane Krakowski (Ally McBeal) as The Girlie Show's neurotic, insecure, ever-so-slightly dim star, Jenna Maroney, Jack McBrayer (Talladega Nights) as irrepressibly nice, naive NBC page, Kenneth, Scott Adsitt (Moral Orel) as producer/perennial straight man, Pete and Judah Friedlander (American Splendor) as slobby, sexist writer, Frank.

The show doesn't exactly hit the ground running, but it hits a frequently hilarious stride about three episodes in. Baldwin gets most of the best lines as the ever-professional, slightly odd Donaghy and the scenes in which he verbally spars with Fey are the show's strongest. Baldwin has a too-often-untapped flair for screwball comedy which he flaunts liberally here. Always in a tux after 6pm, his life micro-managed to OCD levels, he plays it like Cary Grant in His Girl Friday, crossed with Ed Asner in The Mary Tyler Moore Show. Working with a character that could have easily been a cipher, Baldwin delivers every line with unbelieveable relish. He's a revelation but he isn't 30 Rock's only one.

Tracy Morgan is winningly bananas as himself/Tracy Jordan. His character seems to exist on his own plane from the rest of the cast, which suits the character well and Morgan has as much fun with it as he can, without giving the show an uneven edge. Whether it's trying to stab Conan O'Brien, stealing a boat or drawing a tattoo on his face with a Sharpie pen, Morgan is repeatedly watchable and hilarious.

Also great is Jack McBrayer, a real star in the making. As is Adsitt, Krakowski, Friedlander, Dean Winters as Liz' on-off boyfriend, Dennis, Chris Parnell as Tracy's whacked-out doctor, Dr Spaceman (pronounced Spa-che-men), the list goes on.

The Arrested Development comparison isn't a wild one. 30 Rock shares that show's freewheeling, zany, machine-gun rapid gag count and poor ratings/hot critical reception combination. It's probably as doomed as that show too, but here's to 30 Rock burning bright for as long as it's allowed to. Just watch it, alright?

30 Rock debuts on Five, Thursday 11th October at 10.45pm.

Coming soon: my thoughts on Flight Of The Conchords and the new series of Prison Break.

TVOD (2.4.07.)

MONDAY: Well, as always on Monday, you've got The Sopranos (11.10pm, Channel 4). Tonight's episode sees this season back on track, with Johnny Sack out of prison briefly to watch his daughter get married and humiliate himself in front of the rest of 'the family'. Elsewhere, a run-in between Vito and some money-collecting goons has far-reaching consequences. Watch it!

Also tonight, Chris Addison goes on The Hunt For Middle England (11.20pm, BBC2), an irreverent, sideways look at the fabled destination that was shown on BBC4 a couple of months ago. Oh and there's Prison Break (10pm, Five), in which we are sure to learn whether Sara escapes from Kellerman's clutches, and Heroes (10pm, Sci-Fi), which is a little too Mohinder-heavy but sheds some light on Claire's shady dad and introduces a perky waitress, gifted with the power to remember anything she learns really well like. God, that's a crap power! I mean, some of the others can, like, see the future, fly, even travel through time and all she gets is the ability to be really handy in pub quizzes! What a rip-off!

TUESDAY: The Wire, The Wire, The Wire! (10pm, FX) Other than that, Channel 4 have bumped Kidnapped back in the schedules in order to show what looks like one of their patented sensationalist, prurient attempts at reportage in the form of Eunuchs (10pm); a documentary about, y'know, guys who've had their balls cut off.

There's football on too, as Liverpool take on PSV Eindhoven in the quarter-finals of the Champion's League (7.45pm, ITV1). If you don't fancy that, Film4 are showing Planes, Trains And Automobiles (9pm), so you can see John Candy's big pants and Steve Martin's foul-mouthed rant all over again.

WEDNESDAY: The big news in the TV world today is that Sky is completely revamping its movie channels. They're going all genre-specific on our arses, with a channel that will be solely dedicated to premieres (then showing them every frickin' night for a week), one for comedies, one for action movies/thrillers, one for indie-fare, you get the jist. Sounds like one of those ideas that they've just decided to do for shits and giggles and haven't really thought it through. I mean, for instance, what channel can house Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind? Maybe they should have kept a channel aside and called it Sky Movies: Weird Shit.

Also tonight, ITV1 launch a new comedy show, entitled Get A Grip (10pm), which is hosted by Ben "Oh, just fuck off" Elton and Alexa "Who?" Chung. Looks like she's going to be the eye candy for the boys, while the girls get a rough ride by having to look at ol' rat-features. I'm not sure whether it's supposed to be a topical satire show or what it is supposed to be exactly, but one thing's for sure, it must be stopped! Anything involving the man who inflicted the Queen musical on the world must be removed from the air before it has a chance to find an audience. ITV do comedy about as well as Men & Motors does female empowerment though, so I guess it's only a matter of time.

THURSDAY: Channel 4 may or may not air Iraq drama, The Mark Of Cain (9pm), in light of recent events in Iran. If they do, however, that's tonight's must-see TV. Elsewhere, there's Lucky Louie and Chappelle's Show on FX (from 10.30pm) and those two are always good for a laugh.

STOP PRESS! Channel 4 will not be showing The Mark Of Cain tonight and will keep it on ice until there is a resolution to the Iran hostage situation.

Tonight, UKTV Gold are re-animating the corpse of Sir Jimmy Saville for a new show called Jim'll Fix It Strikes Again (9pm). It features all-new fix-its but the main reason to watch will be to see people, now all grown up, revisiting the things that Jim'll fixed it for them to do (Christ, what a clumsy sentence!). Cue grown up men trying to eat on rollercoasters and such like. Weren't they a scout troop? They'll just be trying to suppress the remembrances of the times that Akela tried to touch their special areas then.

FRIDAY: It's Soul Night on BBC4 (programmes begin 8pm), which means an excuse to show the late, great James Brown from last year's Electric Proms. There's also a performance from 1979 from Average White Band, followed by an episode of the recent fantastic documentary series, Soul Britannia. There are other soulful gubbins going on, but the real draw is Standing In The Shadows Of Motown, a brilliant documentary about Motown's house band, The Funk Brothers at midnight. Worth staying up for, indeed.

Elsewhere, there's pretty much fuck-all on, unless you like Golf (The US Masters, from 9pm, BBC2) or My Family (8.30pm, BBC1) and if you do, then god help you.

SATURDAY: Well, obviously there's TV Burp (7.10pm, ITV1), which is followed by Vernon Kay's Gameshow Marathon (7.40pm), which begs the question of how the fuck Vernon Kay keeps on getting work?! How?! I can understand the appeal of most things that are seen to be popular but alongside listening to ultra-compressed mp3s through your mobile's speakers on the bus, the enduring love affair of the British TV-consuming public with Vernon fucking Kay continues to baffle me. Having a strong regional accent that you're willing to play on like a vowel-elongating performing seal, whilst mugging mercilessly for the camera like an ADD-addled pre-pubescent on school photo day does not equal personality.

Over on Channel 4, they're running through the 100 Greatest Tearjerkers (9pm). Your guess is as good as mine as to the winner. Continuing with the soul theme, BBC4 has Urban Soul at 10.10pm, an hour-and-a-half documentary about the rise and rise of r'n'b and hip-hop to become the biggest selling music genre in the world. Might be worth a watch. Got to be better than Vernon bastard Kay, anyway.

SUNDAY: Channel 4 cash in on this whole Easter thing that everyone's going on about by running The Passion Of The Christ (10pm), but if you like your entertainment with a side-order of torture, then 24 (9pm, Sky One) is probably a safer bet. That's followed by Lost, which has been really good lately, particularly last week's off-topic episode that followed the fortunes of the previously sidelined Niki and Paolo since they crashed on the island. The macabre ending was one of the best this season.

On the other side, there's Murder In The Outback (9pm, ITV1), a true-life drama about the murder of British tourist, Peter Falconio and the subsequent investigation, starring the always impressive Joanna Froggatt as Falconio's girlfriend and murder suspect, Joanne Lees. Fancy a laugh? The cult hit, Office Space (12midnight, BBC2) is on. Cult normally means unfunny, but trust me, this one's a keeper.

TV ON THE INTERNET

I'm probably the last person in the world to link to this in some way but... "Somebody gonna get pregnant!". American actor and comedian, Tracy Morgan in full-on, belly-out crazy mode on US TV.

Remind yourself of just how funny Brass Eye was by watching the cake segment from the Drugs episode.

And remind yourself just how fucking awesome music television can be by checking out At The Drive-In on Jools Holland in 2000.