TVSquad

Jonathan, you're being generous here. This was an awful, awful episode. Scarlett Johansson, while game, did a terrible job at trying to pretend that she wasn't reading off cue cards, as did Sudekis in that jewlery store sketch. I mean, really, people; at least make an *attempt* at looking at the person you're talking to, even if you have to shift back and forth between the person and the cue cards. I blame this on the stage director; he or she should be positioning people and extras in place so the cue card readings look more natural. I mean, in that Sweet 16 sketch, did Scarlett look *anyone* in the eye (and don't tell me that that was part of her character. If so, that makes her a psychopath, rather than just a spoiled brat)?

Speaking of the Sweet 16 sketch... I think I've seen bits and pieces of the show, but had no idea what it was about. Wouldn't it be better if they spoofed a show that someone other than the 12-25 audience has ever seen? Or do they think that's the only age group that's home at 11:30 on a Saturday anymore?

Thanks for the explanation for the cartoon opening. I had a feeling that it was a quick substitute for another sketch. It's actually refreshing that they killed the Hardball sketch, though; it's become too much of a crutch for the writers to use as the cold opener.

There was also no need to show Taco Town again. They had almost a month to come up with a recorded bit that they could use as a transition from the monologue to the first sketch. Why throw in a rerun? I don't ever remember them doing this kind of stuff in the past.

What was funny? The Smorgasbord sketch, at least when they pan over from the kitchen and show the husband lying there in a coma. WU was good, but I just wish Amy and Tina didn't smirk and laugh at their own stuff as much. Oh, and WU is starting to look and feel more and more like The Daily Show every week, isn't it? Amy's part of the monologue was pretty good. And the Smigel stuff was also good, as usual. But the laughs were pretty rare.

I really do think our expectations are being lowered with this show, so that *anything* that delivers a chuckle will elevate the episode to "pretty good" status. We really should hold them to a higher standard.

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Jonathan, no episode of SNL is going to be 100% funny. That's not what I was implying. The last half-hour of the show has been notorious for decades as being the part of the show where the weakest skits reside. In reality, most good episodes probably only contain two or three really good sketches, including the commercial parodies. There may be three really good, memorable sketches, a couple of good second-tier ones, and the rest is crap. To me, *that* is a good episode. Episodes where more than half the sketches are funny are what I consider to be classics.

It's not hard to figure out when the show is on top of its game; check the reruns on E!, which are usually of the 1997 - 2005 vintage. The sketches are more tightly written, have a beginning middle and end, and heighten the humor properly (and yes, they cut out 30 minutes of stuff for the E! repeats. But it's not like there are 60 minutes of gold left over, either. But you can even see better writing in the mediocre sketches of the era). The sketches I saw last night had really no direction, just repeating the same joke over and over. It's a stark difference when you take a look at the recent reruns of the show; it makes you wonder what happened to all the writers that were on the show in those recent years.

And, by the way, I can give Scarlett a pass for the cue card readings, but not much of one. Both Justin Timberlake and Christina Aguilera did a good job to not look like they were reading when they hosted, and neither of them are considered actors. Heck, even Derek Jeter made an effort to not look like he was reading. So when a person who's supposed to be a trained, quality actor like Johansson or -- most glaringly -- Robert DeNiro make no effort to avoid looking like they're reading, it's even more grating to me.

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I don't expect the guest stars to be experts with cue cards, nor do I expect them to memorize their lines in a few days. Obvious reading of cue cards only bothers me when it is the regular cast members.



I really enjoyed the Sweet 16 spoof. I've never seen a full episode but I have come across it when channel surfing. I thought the skit was funny. I thought the monologue with Amy was funny too.



As for the rest of the show, some of it made me laugh and some of it didn't. But overall, I thought it was enjoyable. My NBC affiliate runs old SNL episodes at 3 a.m., and really, I don't think the older episodes should be held up as the Holy Grail of comedy. Although some episodes (and some years) clearly are better than others, I think producing a weekly skit comedy is difficult and none of the shows have ever been perfect.

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What disappointed me most about this show was the lack of anything in the mold of "Lazy Sunday." I thought with its success Lorne Michaels would greenlight similar out-there sketches for this show. Instead we got pretty much the traditional stuff. It was far from the worst show of the year, just a bit of a let down that SNL doesn't seem willing to take some chances.



High Point of the Night: Samberg as the Swedish Chef. Is this guy still a featured player? He needs to be promoted.



Low Point of the Night: Duluth Live. Way too long. Not funny.

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The positive feedback this episode has gotten actually really surprised me. I was not impressed. Even WU seemed worse than usual, and that is consistantly my favorite part of the show (I do actually find Tina and Amy funny and consider them far better that Norm or that horrid Colin Quinn. Their laughing doesn't bother me, I suppose). I missed the cold opener, which is a shame since the cartoon would have been a refreshing change, I found Amy's part of the monolouge midly amusing, and I do still adore Death Cab. However, that was about the extent of my appreciation of that episode. The immigrant joke in My Super Sweet 16 was good, but the rest of that sketch was irksome. (And by the way, I'm in high school and have never seen the show as I refuse to watch that MTV junk, but my 45 year old uncle is actually far more familiar with it, so I think it would appeal to a more diverse age group than you'd think).



As far as old versus new SNL, it is getting worse, yes, but I didn't like the early 90s stuff much better (Farley, Sandler, etc). I have seen many reruns at this point, and I do think it can hardly be said that right now SNL is the worst it ever has been. Our standards have been lowered, but many of the eras we find funny now are probably only funnier in nostalgic retrospect.

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I dont know why, but i find andy samburg(sp) hysterical, i think its the facial expressions. The swedish chef ringtones had my laughing more than anything else on the show, i watched it like 4 times. And when he had his guitar solo on the Duluth sketch... good shit. Actually one of the new SNL's that I actually sat through the entire thing. And seriously, where is there a taco town near me? If they play that sketch one more time, im going to demand they build one.

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Most definitely, Nicki. I think we look back on "the old days" of SNL and think that they were all better than what we're seeing now. But I don't mean that. SNL is exhibiting the same characteristics of the other low points of the show, right before they cleaned house and started over, most notably in '85-'86 and '93 - '95 (yes, that previous low point was 2 seasons): listless writing, indifferent hosts, consistently poor sketch choices. So, while the show might not be as bad as it has been in past years, it's also not even as good as some of it's recent mediocre years. Wouldn't you rather see the show be at least decent and buzzworthy? Wouldn't you like to have a season of multiple "Lazy Sundays"? That's what I'm talking about when I hammer on SNL's crapulence.

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I almost died during the Swedish chef thing. Probably the best part of the show... Which is kind of sad.



I thought Scarlett did really well with what she was given. At least she threw in reactions to the dialogue instead of other guests that just stand around and wait for their turn to speak. "Blah blah blah my line blah blah blah my line..."



They should've used Bill Hader some more... But I always say that.

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I thought Scarlett did a fine job with the crap they fed her. I'm not an actor, so I can't imagine signing up to do shows like this where it would seem like a 50-50 chance that the audience would just stare at you open-mouthed -- waiting for something funny that never comes -- until the applause light flashes again. I think that as long as "A-listers" are still agreeing to do the show, we're in for more of the same garbage.

If Baldwin, Hanks, or Martin would be asked and say no due to the current state of the material, I think a housecleaning would ensue much more quickly.



Oh, and I'm a native-Duluthian and was filled with both horror and anticipation at the beginning of that sketch. Fortunately they were consistent and completely dropped the ball by leaving out the funny, and I lost interest in the sketch before it ended. It was the same formulaic send-up of any small town news program, except this time it had a band....

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Wasn't the final sketch terribly similar (in idea if not in tone) to the old Bill Bailey (sp?) sketches that SNL used to do when four guys sat in a bar and toasted Bill Bailey's increasingly outrageous antics?

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Correction to my last post: Bill Brasky, not Bailey.

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The Swedish cooking show killed me. Loved the Chandeliere commercial - "Or this one, or that one..." The rest was fairly lame until the submarine skit: mostly because it felt like typical improv bits and seth's reactions to the sex and guitar playing were nice.



As for Scarlett...she did a fine job. The cue card are to be expected. It's a film star, not an actor. Unless you want to get broadway people on the show every week, you're going to get reading of cards.



And btw, she does some good accents and she's just insanely sexy in a 1940's film noir way. Ayecarumba.

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I thought Scarlett did a pretty good job. I was particularly impressed with the parts of the show that required her to sing. I thought she had a good voice and inhabited her characters. Whether she was playing a bitchy 15 year old, a harpy Queens princess, or a rapper-wannabee, it was all done well.



Plus she was drop dead gorgeous the whole time. My oh my!

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This was probably one of the most unfunny episodes of the year. You have to give Scarlett a lot of credit, especially in the dialect area, for a 21-year old actress. She didn't have a lot to work with regarding the writing and she was pretty funny by herself. The Darwin and Duluth segments were not that good and way too long. If the premise isn't there in the first place, making these longer won't save them. Do the writers get paid by the inch? The banter of the rap segment with Kenan was awful, though the songs of the guests was a saving grace and using Rachel as a boring bafoon is a complete waste. She usually is one of the best people on the show. She hadly had any lines in the chandelier commerical and was funnier than Fred with just a few looks. Samburg looks like he's being groomed to the be the next big thing. He was on Letterman earlier in the week and was pretty engaging in his time with Dave. Look for his use to grow. Why aren't they using Bill Hader more? He clearly is one of the best impressionists they have had in years. They used him to carry a lame Vincent Price skit earlier in the year and the guy has dropped off the map since then.

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I personally didnt think this episode was that bad. The only thing that makes me watch SNL every week is Andy Samberg I've been a lonely island fan (andy samberg's website with Jorma and Akiva, both SNL writers) and i have to say that he is going to become the next great thing to come out of SNL. I was worried when he was hardly ever featured in skits, but im just glad they are using him more and more. Taco Town, Swedish Chef, Shaggy Hair update and even his role in the mostly unfunny Deep Sea Explorers skit was just hilarious. I hope SNL gets rid of alot of ppl and use samberg and all of the current featured players in more skits.

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Scarlett made me turn the show off -- I couldn't stand her totally wooden appearance. She's beautiful and she would have been better off with her mouth shut, looking pretty in the corner.



They also need to break-up the Fey/Poeler duo for the Weekend Update, the two of them are NOT funny together, more annoying than anything. It's like listening in to some stupid high school girl telephone conversation. Vapid doesn't begin to describe the circus.



I am not looking for a 100% show ... hell, these days most of us would take a show that is 50% funny! Do they need to replay lame pre-records over and over?



Maybe they just need to get rid of Lorne Michaels, he IS the brain child behind all of the faltering sketches, he's the one that hires/fires lame writers/actors, sounds like Lorne's time has come.

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I thought Scarlet just sang far too much. She wasn't particularly good, but whatever, I don't watch for the host.

I understand your concerns about the underuse of Andy Samburg and Bill Hader, but really, they are the new guys. I certainly agree that they're very good, but typically the featured players do get less use than others to begin with. There has been a bit of a shortage of Bill, but I don't think Andy is being neglected at all (even though I think the writing could defintely learn from thelonelyisland stuff, as it's actually funny, as SNL is generally not lately.

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Look for Jorma Taccome (who came from The Lonely Island Dudes with Andy Samberg and Akiva Shaffer) to be in more sketches. I have a feeling that they may be going to an older style of SNL with writers who are more involved with the show all around. Here is why I think we will actually see Jorma: In the "Lettuce" Digital Short Jorma walks by at the end munching on some lettuce...also in that atrocious Duluth sketch I believe he played the studio manager that talked to the hosts. I wouldn't put it past Lorne to kick most of the current cast to the curb, keep the current featured players, and add Jorma (as well as a few other new guys).

As a sketch comedy writer myself I, feel at liberty to say that the show is absolutely horrible, and this past episode only made me believe that more. With the number of writers that they have, 45 minutes (the length of the show minus music commercials, music, WU, etc.) is not too much to ask them to write. I can usually write 22 minutes (a 30 minute show) in a week. It's not that hard, I just think they are getting lazy.

Alec Bladwin's episode was the best of this current season, probably because of his ties to the "golden days" of Hartman and the like. He probably came to the table with some good, old-style sketches, or at the very least, he was a little more discerning when it came to choosing sketches that were right for him.

^-^Foxy~>

PS: If you haven't seen the video of Jorma dancing (sans shirt) to Death Cab for Cutie rehearsal, FIND IT!

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I have been a big Death Cab fan for awhile, and I think they did a nice job. Ben's jumping around with Chris' guitar solo and the rainbow lights In "Crooked Teeth" were a highlight for me...I thought Scarlett did pretty well. To me, the "submarine skit" and "Mr. Willoughby" stood out as bein' quite funny...:)

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