NBC has already announced 30 Rock will be back for a sixth season next year. According to star Alec Baldwin, it will also be the show's last. He revealed the news to New York magazine's Ross Kenneth Urken at a National Dance Institute fundraiser last night. "I will tell you one thing," Baldwin said in response to a seemingly unrelated question about whether he'd ever write a memoir. "And that is our show next year is our last year of the show...Our contracts are expired, and Tina [Fey] is gonna have a big career directing films and writing. She's going to be the next Elaine May. She'll be great."

Granted, Baldwin has a long history of pontificating publicly on things he doesn't know or hasn't thought through, but the timing would make seem to make sense. Fey had a box office hit last year with Date Night and her new memoir, Bossypants, is getting strong reviews. Meanwhile, 30 Rock's ratings--never huge--have declined since reaching a record-high for the third season premiere in 2008, prompting Fey's much-discussed comment in her memoir that "[t]he Palin stuff may have hurt the TV show."

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Ray Gustini