TVSquad

(S32E13) I'm not very familiar with Forest Whitaker's work, but I'm well aware of his new-found status as one of the biggest actors in Hollywood. He recently won multiple awards for his performance in The Last King of Scotland, so I knew that he could act. Whitaker didn't do such a spectacular job on SNL. He was good, yeah, but not spectacular.

However, the writing this week was really something else. It was a lot weirder than usual, I thought. For the most part, I liked it. I see that they've cut down on a lot of the more formulaic recurring character sketches, which is a massive improvement. Plus, none of the those recurring sketches are accompanied shitty little theme songs! Remember the days of "Debbie Downer" and "Carol"? Thank goodness those are over.

Cold Open ("Happy Valentine's Day from the Cheney family"): I thought the sketch was pretty funny. Kristen Wiig's performance as Lynn Cheney was especially funny. And damn, I would love a half million dollar gift card to Barnes & Noble. Hook me up, Haliburton.



Monologue: I rarely like the musical monologues, and this was no exception. Boo. It makes me feel like either A) the actor or actress was a little too desperate to show that they can sing or B) the writers couldn't come up with anything good and didn't want to resort to an FAQ monologue. The only time I find musical monologues acceptable is when there's a joke behind it... Like Christopher Walken's "Tomato, Tomato" duet with Jimmy Fallon or, more recently, Jake Gyllenhaal's beautiful Dreamgirls moment.

"The Bronx Beat": This was pretty funny, but it dragged on a bit. I liked "1980-never" and the paranoia over bugs in our eyelids.

"SNL Digital Short": This was so pointless, but I found myself wearing a massive grin throughout the entire thing. Actually, I'm starting to really appreciate these weird Digital Shorts because, while they're often created around completely stupid ideas, the brevity of it all makes it bearable, and even a little fun. Oh, and I enjoyed seeing the reappearance of Andy's yellow "Andy" shirt from the Lonely Island skits.



"Don't Let The Sun Go Down Me": Haha, Whitaker's falsetto was adorable. This was just, all-in-all, really weird. His singing voice was only half-joking in this, so... I was confused as to why they had Whitaker sing in the monologue and in this sketch.

"Urigro": Commercial repeat from the Jeremy Piven episode.



"Man versus Beast": This was a really interesting idea. I really liked Jason Sudeikis' timing with the blood pouring everywhere.

"Weekend Update": WU was all right this week. Um.... was Hammond's Jesse Jackson was looking a little paler than usual? Anyway, the highlight was definitely Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton explaining the different levels of blackness. The astronaut's "I'm Han Solo... for realsies!" and "giving intricate high-fives" was also pretty good.



"Love, Whitney": Eh. This kind of reminded me of Maya Rudolph's whole Versace gag, for some reason. And why did Whitaker come in and sing again? If they knew they were going to make him sing in two sketches, they certainly didn't need a singing monologue.

"Am I A Crazy Street Person": Again, with the weirdness. I really enjoyed this sketch, but I'm not quite sure why.

"Staten Island Zoo: Sloths": Another SNL Digital Short? Hmm. Anyway, I'm now thoroughly convinced that sloths are so hardcore. Was anyone else reminded of RatherGood.com's stuff (their most famous works are probably the Quizno commercials with the spongemonkeys)? This was so deliciously effed up.



Keith Urban: I really don't like country music, so this wasn't my cup of tea. I suppose he did well.