I’m a sucker for advertising. Put a pretty bow on it, wrap it in some colourful, shiny paper, dress it up in bling and I’m there.

But suckers often get fooled.

That’s how I feel after having watched the premieres of two new summer shows this week – 30 Rock and The Starter Wife (Ten, Wednesdays 8.30pm).

Oh, how I wish the rap guys from Public Enemy could have burst into my loungeroom in a dream-like, musical-esque montage to jab fingers in my face and hop up and down, screaming “Don’t Believe The Hype!” when I saw the promos and read the blurb about one of these shows.

Sorry, boys, but I did believe the hype and this week I paid the price.

I felt like I’d watched the entire season of 30 Rock weeks before it appeared on screen, thanks to all the magazine pages, net space and promo time it consumed. It was everywhere and all the praise I had heard was absolutely glowing.

I certainly sat up very straight when I read 30 Rock had won an Emmy for best comedy series and that it was being driven by a Saturday Night Live stable of funny people like Tina Fey.

Then, my already ramrod-straight posture stiffened even further when one commentator suggested 30 Rock was the best American television comedy since Arrested Development (one of my all-time favourites). That’s a big call.

The first whiff of something dodgy in the air was the time slot Channel Seven had given it: Mondays and Wednesdays at 10.30pm. Hmm, this one is going to be a “straight to video” release in my house.

I watched and was disappointed and underwhelmed.

The show is set inside the NBC studios and follows a group of writers, working on a live comedy TV show, who end up having major clashes with their new boss, played with distracted sleaze by Alec Baldwin.

It’s not funny unless over-acting, lame jokes, stereotypical characters and contrived plots suddenly have become funny.

Maybe I should give it another chance, let it find its legs and not be so quick to judge, I initially thought.

But then I saw The Starter Wife and I realised that good TV should grab you in the first minutes of the first segment so it keeps you coming back beyond the ad breaks.

In stark comparison to the 30 Rock build-up, I saw a grand total of two 15-second promos for The Starter Wife which, I must say, were funnier than the entire episode of 30 Rock (“Of course I’m cranky. I haven’t eaten in 12 years!” Classic.)

Ex-Will and Grace lead Debra Messing sheds her Grace skin as Molly Kagan in The Starter Wife.

Her ass of a husband Kenny (think the child Steve Carrell and Ben Stiller might have) just announced he wants a divorce.

Molly has to start again and she turns to her ever-faithful friends who, alright a little cliched, are: ageing alcoholic Joan (Judy Davis), gay decorator Rodney (Chris Diamantopoulos) and pert Cricket (Miranda Otto).

Notice all the Aussie names? Wait, there’s more. At one stage I thought I was watching a direct feed into the ladies' loos at the Logies. There’s Jane Hall, Kate Kendall and, oh look, Madeleine West. Sharp eyes from a colleague in the office also picked up Sofie Formica and Mark Holden.

(Marg Downey, Rodger Corser, Julia Blake and Chris Haywood are other Aussies set to pop up). No surprise, given the show was apparently filmed on our shores.

It is cutting, insightful, sharp and wickedly funny. Have a strong cup of coffee 15 minutes before you watch it, though, because you will need to have everything firing to keep up with this script – but in a good way.

It’s not hard work. It’s just so funny that you have those moments that all great comedy should deliver: when you worry about missing the second, third and fourth joke because you are laughing so hard at the first one. (At least we have it on tape so catching up on all the laughs is just a rewind-button press away.)

Here are characters you care about, even the security guard on duty at Joan’s Malibu house, caricatures though they are and live in a world so drastically removed from our mundane suburbia as they do.

There is no comparison between these shows but to give you an idea: 30 Rock is like low-fat carob while The Starter Wife is handmade Belgian chocolate; 30 Rock is watered-down Clayton’s, The Starter Wife is Johnnie Walker blue label; 30 Rock is decaf International Roast, The Starter Wife is a superb Arabica-beaned short black served on a gondola in Venice.

You get the picture.

(And, no, 30 Rock is nowhere near as brilliant as Arrested Development. I even feel dirty putting them both in the same sentence.)

- REBECCA MARSHALL