30 Rock Live: Ranking the Ten Characters Who Worked Best

5. Jack (Alec Baldwin)

The SNL hosting vet fumbled a few lines on the East Coast feed, but he also killed when it came to smelling Jenna's mouth to curb his alcohol thirst and practicing magic tricks on a confused Liz.

Best line: (To Liz, who asks him to have a drink with her): "Avery says no, but it's dangerous to say no to an old spinster. You may turn me into an old crow!"

4. Drew (Jon Hamm)

In just a minute-long cameo as a commercial spokesman, Hamm took his role as Liz's buffoon ex and elevated it to a vaudevillian mix of slapstick, one-liners, and darting pupils. Is there room for him to appear again on 30 Rock? Maybe not. But this was a genius closing scene for Hamm's halfwit character.

Best line: "Every year dozens of people lose their hand to a helicopter, or a fireworks mishap, or in my case, both."

3. Carol (Matt Damon)

I hope Matt Damon watched Robert Stack in Airplane minutes before going on air, because his pilot crisis sideplot conjured clear memories of that classic role. Bonus points also awarded for Carol's reference to DVR'ing Bones, which airs opposite 30 Rock.

Best line: "No non-essential chatter, Liz, I'm having the worst flight of my career. We got wind chill, lightning, turbulence -- the in-flight meal was a fritatta."

2. Liz (Tina Fey)

Liz appeared in a bulk of the scenes last night, shifting from harried to hilarious to straight-man to crestfallen within the space of single scenes. She sometimes responded too quickly to certain jokes before the audience could catch up, but eh. Minor snafus are the orchids of live TV, as Keats used to say -- wild and eye-catchy and each a singular spectacle. Plus, a real Liz Lemon would sometimes have bad timing! It all works out.

Best line: "Open on: The Coven Garden flower market, 1892: "Flawehs! Flawehs fo' sayo!"

1. Jenna (Jane Krakowski)

Turns out SNL alums are no match for legitimate stage veterans, and no one proved it like Jane Krakowski. The Tony-winner sang the "30 Rock Live!" theme with pitch-perfect gusto, found time to say something offensive about the Chilean miners ("Oh, they're geniuses for getting stuck in a mine?") and burst with the clearest, shrewdly timed punchlines.

Best line: "Welcome back to Fox News. I'm blonde."

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