6.8/10. This was a weird episode of SNL to judge, because there were a handful of really clever, sharp, and funny sketches, and then a bevy of absolute duds. It starts and ends with Felicity Jones who, while amiable enough, seemed pretty in over her head in terms of live comedy. Her opening monologue, while amusing enough thanks to saves from Kenan and a pinch-hitting Tina Fey (doing her best Star Wars riffs), it was clear from her “high school recital” level delivery of the gags that we were in for a long night with her at the helm.
Thankfully, the show mostly used her judiciously, and managed to put together some pretty great stuff when she didn’t have to carry much. The cold open parodying the Trump press conference was the right balance of cutting gags and exaggerated buffoonery. The show has narrowed its take on Trump a bit, and while Alec Baldwin still mugs an awful lot, the gloves have come off and the comedy is better for it.
The Susan B. Anthony sketch was a great premise – women nominally super glad and honored for Anthony (Kate McKinnon doing her usual stellar stuff) but who were more concerned with the minutia of getting home to where they were annoyed by Anthony’s presence – with some amusing social commentary to boot. And the same goes for the “Hot Robot” sketch, which was funny on its own with the idea of the cast and director of a super broad comedy talking in hushed tones about their film as though it makes a profound political statement, but which also works as a subtle jab at artists taking themselves too seriously when it comes to politics.
Weekend Update was in especially fine form. While the correspondent bits were fairly weak (Pete Davidson’s “First Impressions” felt like a watered down “Hollywood Minute,” and Beck Bennett’s “deluded pop star” bit died on the vine) Jost and Che were on fire. Again, the remarks about Trump’s misadventures were cutting and unafraid to get a bit edgy, and Che’s bit discussing policing in Chicago was especially incisive and funny.
But man, the rest of the show was just D.O.A. The pre-taped “drug dealer’s car breaks down” sketch seemed to be one of those kind of chuckle-worthy, “it’s more about the mood” pieces the show puts out there sometime, but it never found a second gear. The return of the Bachelor-parodying sketch is hitting diminishing returns quickly, but is at least light on its feet given the rapid-fire nature of the sketch. The “old man ruins play” sketch was more grossness instead of actual humor, a well the show’s gone too more often lately, though the punchline where the actors yell at the guy taking a phone call was good. And the ten-to-one sketch with the ladies at the corporate retreat making bad jokes about people being “loose” didn’t prompt a single laugh.
That just leaves “The Princess and the Curse” which was the only part of the episode that hit middling rather than good or bad. It was a well-done parody at a technical level, and the perspective and commentary on shallowness behind it was solid, but it just didn’t come together in especially funny way.
Overall, Jones was out of her depth, which kept the show playing from behind a lot, and Beck Bennett whom I generally like, was overused and a little exposed out there. The result was a very uneven SNL, which could probably have been chopped down to a half hour of superb comedy taken apart from the duds.
Review by Andrew BloomVIP 9BlockedParent2017-01-16T03:23:38Z
6.8/10. This was a weird episode of SNL to judge, because there were a handful of really clever, sharp, and funny sketches, and then a bevy of absolute duds. It starts and ends with Felicity Jones who, while amiable enough, seemed pretty in over her head in terms of live comedy. Her opening monologue, while amusing enough thanks to saves from Kenan and a pinch-hitting Tina Fey (doing her best Star Wars riffs), it was clear from her “high school recital” level delivery of the gags that we were in for a long night with her at the helm.
Thankfully, the show mostly used her judiciously, and managed to put together some pretty great stuff when she didn’t have to carry much. The cold open parodying the Trump press conference was the right balance of cutting gags and exaggerated buffoonery. The show has narrowed its take on Trump a bit, and while Alec Baldwin still mugs an awful lot, the gloves have come off and the comedy is better for it.
The Susan B. Anthony sketch was a great premise – women nominally super glad and honored for Anthony (Kate McKinnon doing her usual stellar stuff) but who were more concerned with the minutia of getting home to where they were annoyed by Anthony’s presence – with some amusing social commentary to boot. And the same goes for the “Hot Robot” sketch, which was funny on its own with the idea of the cast and director of a super broad comedy talking in hushed tones about their film as though it makes a profound political statement, but which also works as a subtle jab at artists taking themselves too seriously when it comes to politics.
Weekend Update was in especially fine form. While the correspondent bits were fairly weak (Pete Davidson’s “First Impressions” felt like a watered down “Hollywood Minute,” and Beck Bennett’s “deluded pop star” bit died on the vine) Jost and Che were on fire. Again, the remarks about Trump’s misadventures were cutting and unafraid to get a bit edgy, and Che’s bit discussing policing in Chicago was especially incisive and funny.
But man, the rest of the show was just D.O.A. The pre-taped “drug dealer’s car breaks down” sketch seemed to be one of those kind of chuckle-worthy, “it’s more about the mood” pieces the show puts out there sometime, but it never found a second gear. The return of the Bachelor-parodying sketch is hitting diminishing returns quickly, but is at least light on its feet given the rapid-fire nature of the sketch. The “old man ruins play” sketch was more grossness instead of actual humor, a well the show’s gone too more often lately, though the punchline where the actors yell at the guy taking a phone call was good. And the ten-to-one sketch with the ladies at the corporate retreat making bad jokes about people being “loose” didn’t prompt a single laugh.
That just leaves “The Princess and the Curse” which was the only part of the episode that hit middling rather than good or bad. It was a well-done parody at a technical level, and the perspective and commentary on shallowness behind it was solid, but it just didn’t come together in especially funny way.
Overall, Jones was out of her depth, which kept the show playing from behind a lot, and Beck Bennett whom I generally like, was overused and a little exposed out there. The result was a very uneven SNL, which could probably have been chopped down to a half hour of superb comedy taken apart from the duds.