Ellen Gray | Jerry Seinfeld gets a piece of the 'Rock'

30 ROCK. 8:30 tonight, Channel 10.

FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS. 9 p.m. tomorrow, Channel 10.

FIRST TINA FEY'S "30 Rock" got the Emmy.

Tonight, it gets the Jerry.

When it comes to expanding the show's audience beyond the "dozens and dozens" of viewers Fey thanked in her acceptance of the best-comedy Emmy a few weeks ago, the Jerry might be the bigger prize.

Not that Jerry Seinfeld is the funniest person on "30 Rock" tonight. That honor belongs each and every week to Alec Baldwin.

But unlike some of his former co-stars, Jerry's been a scarce commodity since "Seinfeld" went off the air, and his over-the-top presence (and yes, he's way over the top even playing himself) is bound to draw a few people to a show that averaged only 5.4 million viewers a week last season.

What they'll find there is a sitcom that might just know more about television than you'd think the network that airs it would want anyone to know.

Especially tonight, when television exec Jack Donaghy (Baldwin) comes up with "Seinfeld Vision," a plan to use old "Seinfeld" clips to digitally insert the star into every NBC series from "Law & Order: SVU" to "Medium," as well as into some new series you may not have heard of, but shouldn't necessarily regard as wholly fictional, such as "MILF Island" ("25 sexy moms, 50 sweaty eighth-grade boys - and one beloved American comedy star").

Whatever he tells Liz Lemon (Fey), Donaghy's on shaky legal ground here, but that's about the only reason I can think of that no one at NBC has yet put such a plan in motion.

Indeed, during last May's upfronts, former NBC entertainment president Kevin Reilly actually bragged to advertisers that he'd secured Seinfeld for some "minisodes" related to "Bee Movie," the animated film the star also gets to flog in "30 Rock."

Programming or commercials? Hard to say.

Making fun of such deals - which could multiply now that Reilly's been replaced by product-placement guru Ben Silverman - has been one of "30 Rock's" trademarks from Day 1, when Fey's pilot had Donaghy promoting an actual (but absurd-sounding) product from NBC's parent company, GE.

Other than that it hasn't lost its subversive edge, the best news about tonight's season premiere is that it uses Seinfeld the way "Seinfeld" did - as a foil for funnier actors.

From Fey, who's both a terrific writer and a better actress than she was a year ago (though her Jerry Seinfeld impersonation needs work), to Kenneth the page (Jack McBrayer), who's about to become Tracy's (Tracy Morgan) "office wife," everyone gets at least one great moment tonight.

Even the previously underserved Jane Krakowski has some fun when her character, Jenna, returns from a summer on Broadway in a bad fat suit that (sort of) makes her appear as if she'd gained weight.

Still, Baldwin ends up with the best line there, too.

"She needs to lose 30 pounds or gain 60," Donaghy tells Fey's Lemon. "Anything else has no place in television."

I'd expect an executive like Donaghy to be equally dismissive of the first season of NBC's "Friday Night Lights," which was watched by only a few hundred thousand people more than "30 Rock" but which was nevertheless the network's finest show: subtle and full of heart.

I'm not sure how long it can hold onto the subtlety, though, as tomorrow night's season premiere takes "Lights" down a road I'd normally expect to find running through "One Tree Hill," not Dillon, Texas.

This is the kind of thing that often happens in the second season of a low-rated show, but it's hard to see it happen on one like "Friday Night Lights," which wasn't in need of fixing so much as it was in need of better marketing - some of it merely to overcome the promos that early on led many to think it was just a show about football.

There is so much to admire in tomorrow's episode that I want to believe that "Friday Night Lights" will be able to overcome what I can't help but think is a horrible mistake - and that somehow, the two characters most affected will be able to overcome it, too.

And no, I'm not talking about the problems quarterback Matt Saracen (Zach Gilford) and his girlfriend, Julie (Aimee Teegarden) are having, though that, too, seems like a mistake - a rift created for the sake of drama that feels as artificial as that sounds.

This problem's much bigger, and I think you'll know it when you see it.

Two subsequent episodes don't really solve what may well be unsolvable, but they do affirm that there's still much more to love than to deplore about "Friday Night Lights."

I'm not throwing in the towel yet. *

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