[5.1/10] Well, it looks like it’s going to be a long season, folks. This was yet another SNL outing where the host was game enough, but the material was weak and even if there weren’t many outright duds, there were very few, if any, standout sketches.
Haddish was perfectly fine. She had a good energy which helps on a live show, even if she occasionally fell back into the “dancing in lieu of actual comedy” shtick that every Dreamworks movie ends in. Her free association monologue was that idea in action, but it was winning enough, and she even brought back the dress during Update, which was a nice payoff.
The political sketches continue to be weak. The opener, about Roy Moore’s predation, lacked a real rhythm and as much as I love Kate McKinnon just goofing around, her Jeff Sessions bit has gotten overdone. By the same token, the “Democrats Are Back!” ad was full of pretty toothless jabs. Though the humor of “new faces” coming to the party, and Larry David joking about his own line-crossing gags was a mild laugh.
The rest of the sketches were mild at best. The Mortal Kombat parody was a decent premise, but was one of those “isn’t this wacky!” sketches that doesn’t have much of a point or any real momentum. The same’s true for the Last Black Unicorn sketch, which felt like it needed a few more drafts before the writers found the humor in it.
I’ve also grown tired of the “Kyle Mooney dating Leslie Jones” pre-taped bit. The first couple were okay, but half the joke of these is the surprise of the “earnest mixed with absurdity” tone, and there’s no surprise to it anymore, which weakens the whole enterprise. And The Lion King screen test pre-taped was the usual collection of meh celebrity impressions, with the only one that really stood out as accurate or funny being the John Oliver impression and Haddish’s Oprah.
“Get Woke with Tamika” was DOA. Leslie Jones probably shouldn’t lead sketches until she gets all the stumbling and corpsing under control, but again, the material as written did her no favors either. “The Dolphin Who Learned to Speak” was amusing enough, but kind of pales in comparison to the (not all that exaggerated) real story they’re parodying. And I like “Whiskers R We” but they’ve done this sketch lots of times and it’s the same shtick.
The one bright spot here was Weekend Update. Jost and Che were on fire, with their knives out for everything from Trump’s latest horrifying gaffes, to celebrity sex offenders, to sheep being able to recognize faces. The rest of the show may be tepid this year, but they brought their A-game this week, with a few one-liners in particular that really went for the jugular. In terms of correspondents, Cecily Strong killed it as the HR director who is just beside herself that she has to teach these basic things about not harassing women. Kenan and Lorenzo Ball’s tall tale-telling dad was weak, but otherwise, WU was the stand out this week.
Overall, yet another weak episode from this season.
Review by Andrew BloomVIP 9BlockedParent2017-11-15T06:17:06Z
[5.1/10] Well, it looks like it’s going to be a long season, folks. This was yet another SNL outing where the host was game enough, but the material was weak and even if there weren’t many outright duds, there were very few, if any, standout sketches.
Haddish was perfectly fine. She had a good energy which helps on a live show, even if she occasionally fell back into the “dancing in lieu of actual comedy” shtick that every Dreamworks movie ends in. Her free association monologue was that idea in action, but it was winning enough, and she even brought back the dress during Update, which was a nice payoff.
The political sketches continue to be weak. The opener, about Roy Moore’s predation, lacked a real rhythm and as much as I love Kate McKinnon just goofing around, her Jeff Sessions bit has gotten overdone. By the same token, the “Democrats Are Back!” ad was full of pretty toothless jabs. Though the humor of “new faces” coming to the party, and Larry David joking about his own line-crossing gags was a mild laugh.
The rest of the sketches were mild at best. The Mortal Kombat parody was a decent premise, but was one of those “isn’t this wacky!” sketches that doesn’t have much of a point or any real momentum. The same’s true for the Last Black Unicorn sketch, which felt like it needed a few more drafts before the writers found the humor in it.
I’ve also grown tired of the “Kyle Mooney dating Leslie Jones” pre-taped bit. The first couple were okay, but half the joke of these is the surprise of the “earnest mixed with absurdity” tone, and there’s no surprise to it anymore, which weakens the whole enterprise. And The Lion King screen test pre-taped was the usual collection of meh celebrity impressions, with the only one that really stood out as accurate or funny being the John Oliver impression and Haddish’s Oprah.
“Get Woke with Tamika” was DOA. Leslie Jones probably shouldn’t lead sketches until she gets all the stumbling and corpsing under control, but again, the material as written did her no favors either. “The Dolphin Who Learned to Speak” was amusing enough, but kind of pales in comparison to the (not all that exaggerated) real story they’re parodying. And I like “Whiskers R We” but they’ve done this sketch lots of times and it’s the same shtick.
The one bright spot here was Weekend Update. Jost and Che were on fire, with their knives out for everything from Trump’s latest horrifying gaffes, to celebrity sex offenders, to sheep being able to recognize faces. The rest of the show may be tepid this year, but they brought their A-game this week, with a few one-liners in particular that really went for the jugular. In terms of correspondents, Cecily Strong killed it as the HR director who is just beside herself that she has to teach these basic things about not harassing women. Kenan and Lorenzo Ball’s tall tale-telling dad was weak, but otherwise, WU was the stand out this week.
Overall, yet another weak episode from this season.