Ellen Gray | Fey ready to take on 2nd season of '30 Rock'

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. - A year ago, Tina Fey was writing and starring in that other NBC series about the behind-the-scenes doings at a late-night sketch-comedy show.

This summer, "30 Rock" is the last one standing, and Fey is getting ready for the second season of a comedy some are comparing to "The Mary Tyler Moore Show."

Thinking of the woman I'd first met several years ago, when she was head writer at "Saturday Night Live" and had only recently stepped out in front of the cameras on "Weekend Update," I offer up the trite-but-true "Is it surreal?" and Fey plays along.

"Yes, it feels surreal that anyone would write that our show is like 'The Mary Tyler Moore Show' - that's the greatest compliment that you know you could ever have," said the Upper Darby native at an NBC cocktail party where at one point she paused to wipe the rings other guests had left on a grand piano. ("My husband's a musician.")

"It's a good feeling. Unfortunately, there's very little time to enjoy that feeling because we're working all the time. That's the toss-up," she added.

Last season, Fey, whose daughter will be 2 in September, wrote "eight or nine" of the show's 21 episodes and starred, of course, in every one. She'd like to do the same next season.

"I'm just finishing up shooting a movie ['Baby Mama'] with Amy Poehler and then I'll be getting back into the writers' room," Fey said.

Last season, "I would shoot and then every moment that I wasn't shooting I would literally make the writers' assistant chase me down while I was trying to have a snack, whatever, and make me read the pages that the writers needed me to read. They'll write a draft and I always weigh in on the draft and oftentimes, you know, make adjustments myself."

Then, "on the weekends, I would try to work at night," she said.

This season, Fey said, "I would really like to try to live in the world of the characters we've created for a little bit. We had a lot of great guest stars last year, but I also feel like there's a lot we could explore with the characters that we have. And I'd like to leave a little breathing room in the show, to let viewers keep up a little. I feel like sometimes it was a little too dense, the shows last year. In a way, [it was] the thing that made 'Arrested Development' so great, but I wonder if it will help new viewers come to the show if it's a little" less packed.

One guest star we will see is Jerry Seinfeld, who'll appear in the season opener, apparently at the behest of NBC's new co-chairman, Ben Silverman.

"It's the greatest news ever," said Fey, whose show averaged 5.4 million viewers last season. "We pitched him an idea, and he signed off on it. I want to save it, for comedy reasons, but yeah, we've got it," she said.

"I've worked with him at 'SNL,' and it's great," Fey said. "With comedy people, you've got to really bring your A-game, because they know the difference."

complaints here

I hadn't planned to ask NBC News anchor Brian Williams what he thought of "The Sopranos" ending - though Williams did grow up in New Jersey - but then he mentioned he'd tried to ask some offbeat questions while moderating a Democratic presidential debate in South Carolina this past spring.

His examples: "Do you own a gun? Did you grow up in a household with a gun? Would you like to use a gun on your moderator right now?"

(A transcript of the debate shows he stopped at Question 2.)

So I asked if he'd consider asking candidates how they felt about the way "The Sopranos" ended.

"I'll take that as a question. I think ['Sopranos' creator] David Chase gave us an episode to hang in the Louvre," said Williams, who used to eat with his parents at Holsten's, the Bloomfield, N.J., restaurant where the finale was filmed. "You get to decide" what happened, he said.

"The apple of his eye, this woman in full, Meadow, comes running through the door after we think the Lexus parking drama's going to end poorly. I think Chase is a genius and I actually loved the last episode," he said.

And just for the record, Williams claims not to have first thought his cable had gone out.

"No, no! I know the work of David Chase too well," he said.

As for Tony Soprano (James Gandolfini), "I assume he went on with the daily risks of subpoena, indictment, shooting and the daily conflicts that can happen to an upper-middle-class mob boss. On a cul-de-sac," Williams said. *

Daily News TV critic Ellen Gray (graye@phillynews.com) is covering the Television Critics Association's summer meetings in Beverly Hills. For more, see her blog at go.philly.com/ellengray or join her at 11 a.m. Friday on philly.com, when she and Inquirer TV critic Jonathan Storm will be hosting another online chat.