The American series "30 Rock" has been airing in the U.K. for several years now, and most of it carries perfectly well across the pond. But comedy depends on context, and I was surely not alone among my countrymen in raising an eyebrow at one plot twist. Jack Donaghy, the fictional head of NBC (played by Alec Baldwin), decided to run the network into the ground and, to that end, scheduled a series of shows guaranteed to shed viewers. His great triumph was a concept so brilliantly appalling that its very title seemed oxymoronic: "Cricket Night in America."

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