How Tracy Morgan’s ‘The Fall and Rise of Reggie Dinkins’ connects with ’30 Rock’

As Jack Donaghy (Alec Baldwin) once declared on 30 Rock, “You can’t fight synergy, Lemon.” And the team behind that enduring line is proving that philosophy is still true with their new comedy series The Fall and Rise of Reggie Dinkins, since it’s actually connected to 30 Rock.

Originally titled The Untitled Tracy Morgan Project, the new series brings back the team behind 30 Rock: co-creators Robert Carlock and Sam Means, and executive producer Tina Fey, collaborating with star Tracy Morgan once again for another wacky NBC sitcom.

Morgan plays the titular disgraced NFL superstar who was banned for life from the league after accidentally revealing he bet on his own New York Jets games. Reggie hires award-winning filmmaker Arthur Tobin (Daniel Radcliffe) to make a documentary about his life and career in the hopes it will win back the respect of his fans, peers, and family, and ultimately achieve his dream of getting into the Hall of Fame despite the betting scandal. But he’ll have to own up to his past mistakes first.

Radcliffe, who “grew up” watching 30 Rock, tells Entertainment Weekly that throughout filming he noticed many different references to the Emmy-winning show in the dialogue, set decoration, and more, which Carlock confirms intentionally link both shows. 

“It’ll be a real test for the people of TikTok to see if they, 1., find the show on broadcast, and 2., if they can find the 30 Rock Easter eggs,” Fey tells EW with a laugh. “In that 30 Rock way, there are things threaded through the entire season so there’s a lot of rewards for paying attention. This is like the Severance of comedy.”

While Carlock doesn’t want to spoil all the surprise Easter eggs, he can reveal one they shot during the last week of production.

“We just had a scene where they were pouring Donaghy Estates champagne,” Carlock says, referring to Jack’s terrible sparkling wine from the first season of 30 Rock. “We asked our graphics and prop people to hunt that down, which they did immediately, so we had Donaghy in there. I’d like to live in a world where Kenneth Parcell [Jack McBrayer] is running NBC as well, but that might not be for another couple hundred years in the 30 Rock timeline, right? We are always trying to do those little things without breaking everything. But yeah, I’d like to think that The Girly Show is still on, and it should be on their TV.”

“Reggie just happens to look a lot like Tracy Jordan,” Means adds with a laugh.

The two showrunners continue to riff on how they would explain the uncanny similarities between Morgan’s two characters existing in the same world. 

“At some point, Tracy Jordan should be playing Reggie, but Reggie doesn’t see the similarity,” Carlock says. In the extremely distant future timeline of this extended TV universe, they want to see Tracy Jordan play Reggie Dinkins in a narrative sports biopic adapted from his documentary that’s being created in this show (got all that?). 

“That’s how Tracy Jordan wins his second Oscar,” Means decides.

Fey, however, doesn’t believe fans will have to wait long to see this potential meta crossover joke come to pass. “I hope this show runs long enough that we get to that episode and Tracy’s playing two parts, but if I know Robert and Sam, that would be episode 2 of season 2,” she says. “They’re not going to wait until seasons 8 or 9.”

For his part, Morgan doesn’t even want to begin to question how 30 Rock and Reggie Dinkins exist in the same universe. “I don’t know what’s in Rob’s head,” he says. “I just know it’s genius. It absolutely feels like we’re back on the [30 Rock] set — I learned a lot from Tina how to run a show, how to be on it, how to be the star, so yeah, it’s the same, but we don’t look backwards. We only look forward.”

Morgan already has plans for more 30 Rock crossover in the future by getting his former costar and current executive producer Fey to make an onscreen appearance (she remains firmly behind the camera for the first season).

“One day when Tina makes an appearance, that’ll be great,” he says. “I just hope she does. Tina’s my sister, and Rob is my brother— we got Saturday Night Live together the same year. We’ve been working together for a long time. I’m glad we all got back in the saddle again.”

Fey admits her complicated filming schedule for season 2 of her Netflix series Four Seasons made it “impossible” to even make a cameo on Reggie Dinkins, which was in production at the same time. “But I would love to come do something with Tracy,” she says, before adding with a laugh, “by seasons 8 or 9.”

Morgan is the reason this 30 Rock reunion is even happening in the first place, nearly 13 years after it ended. “I didn’t want 30 Rock to be over,” he says, explaining that while he loved playing the unpredictable but well-meaning sketch comedy star Tracy Jordan opposite Fey’s frazzled head writer Liz Lemon for seven seasons, it was the real-life community of the show he missed even more.

So rather than reviving or rebooting 30 Rock, he went to Fey, Carlock, and Means in January 2024 with the hopes of getting the band back together for a totally new series. And the creative team was equally thrilled to learn that Morgan wanted to make a new show with them and be back on NBC in “an old school way,” Carlock says.

“I’ve worked on everything these guys have done since 30 Rock,” Means says. “And I’m just holding firmly to their coattails as I go through this life.”

“He’s ruining my coattails. They’re really nice coattails,” Carlock quips, before continuing seriously. “We literally at one point on 30 Rock had [Morgan’s] character read the phone book, and it was just so funny. We just love writing for him, and we thought building a world around him would be a lot of fun.”

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After they finished production on season 1, Fey recognized how Radcliffe developed a “deep love” for Morgan, reminiscent of the way she did over seven seasons on 30 Rock. 

“When the end of the season came, I sent Dan a note and I was like, ‘You and I now have a shared deep understanding of Tracy Morgan,'” Fey says. “I feel like his character and Liz Lemon have a lot in common in that way.”

Maybe Radcliffe’s character also has a similar affinity for working on his night cheese.

The Fall and Rise of Reggie Dinkins premieres Feb. 23 at 8 p.m. ET/PT on NBC. Read more about the new series in EW’s cover story here.