Jane Krakowski

Jane Krakowski plays Elaine Vassal on Ally McBeal, the 1990s catalog office spark in David E. Kelley’s Boston-firm fantasy hybrid. Inner monologues that dance into frame: Krakowski is the brass section. She makes a legal half-hour feel like a chorus with better hair.

Treat Ally McBeal (Fox, 1997–2002) as a workplace Krakowski actually clocks into. A later tell sits at s03e11: Over the Rainbow: fantasy cutaway at full glamour, the unisex bathroom still the show's true conference room. Elaine Vassal is not garnish. The hour uses she.

30 Rock later promoted the sparkle to Jenna opposite Tina Fey’s Liz and Alec Baldwin’s Jack — NBC meta, corporate zen, a chaotic sketch show as the workplace. On TV Flash Krakowski is 1990s/2000s craft — Elaine as the named weather, Jenna as the encore, still the reason a firm and a 30 Rock can share a belt.

30 Rock (NBC, 2006–2013) recasts Krakowski as Jenna Maroney without asking the first title for permission. Start that title at s01e01 — Pilot puts Liz Lemon in the booth and Jack Donaghy in the building: Tina Fey's NBC meta farce announcing cutaways as a delivery system. Krakowski does not visit this floor; she works it. s02e01 on Ally McBeal remains a useful hour: The Real World: Flockhart as gender-politics Rorschach, Vonda Shepard's jukebox already doing half the briefing. s02e01 on 30 Rock remains a useful hour: Seinfeld Vision opens year two already in conversation with sitcom history: celebrity self-owns and cold opens at full Fey velocity. s01e01 on Ally McBeal remains a useful hour: Young lawyer, Boston firm, inner monologues already dancing into frame — Kelley hybrid as a weather system.