I'll be honest, this week's SNL was a flat-out mess. The writing was really poor, with a good amount of suspect skits, but there were a few bright spots (and a music act that inflated the score).
The cold open was better than most this season thus far. It saw Cecily Strong as Megyn Kelly interviewing Gov. Christie (Bobby Moynihan), who got him down perfectly. Kate McKinnon also made an appearance as the Maine nurse. McKinnon just makes everything better. In terms of political skit writing, this was an improvement.
Chris Rock was pretty edgy in his monologue, mentioning the NYC/Boston Marathons, and the Freedom Tower. He went on to discuss gun control. It seemed like classic Chris Rock, but either you were offended or you weren't. It was fairly hit or miss.
The first skit was a webcam show "How to dance with Janelle" with Sasheer Zamata. Chris Rock brought it up a bit as the father, but altogether this skit was a dud. No faux webcam show will ever be as good as Jimmy Fallon's "Jarret's Room".
The parody ads have been really good this season. There were two notable ones this week, first up was the Go-Pro esque "Go Probe" for colonoscopies. It was clever, and really showed how ordinary the go-pro camera has become.
The "How's He Doing?" skit (a panel of black commentators/analysts talking about President Obama) returned, and it was equally cringeworthy.
The last time I mentioned a music act it was for Hozier. This week it was Prince, who just rocked the house down. It was a little slow to start, but it really got going with Prince's guitar rifts. Its certainly a must-watch.
Weekend Update was pretty good this week. The jokes weren't as good as last week, but most importantly, youth correspondent Pete Davidson returned!
Jay Pharoah also brought back his Katt Williams impersonation for Update, and it was pretty good (although Drake from last season still might be the best Williams impression)
This next skit was very odd, and trying to be edgy just for the sake of it. It saw the Shark Tank crew getting a pitch from.....ISIS.....yes that ISIS. In the end, it turned out that Daymond John (Kenan Thompson) had called homeland security on them. It wasn't all that clever, and just seemed to want to be offensive/edgy (as stated) just for the sake of it. It didn't make any greater point.
The second parody ad was probably the best skit of the night. It featured medication for something like vertigo.....but for Taylor Swift. The basic premise was to not fight your ear's obsession of Taylor Swift, just embrace it. This was an incredibly good concept (and dare I say, rather true. Deep down, everyone does like Taylor Swift, Ha).
Man oh man, this bizarre skit between Chris Rock and Leslie Jones about getting ready for an Uber cab. The writing was dreadful, but it got even more awkward when Jones just froze midway through (it was one of the first actual live skits she's been in since being named an official cast member). It was just a train-wreck.
There was a polite bank robbery short. On an average night this season, this would have been mediocre, but for this week, it was slightly amusing considering how the rest of the show went down.
And finally we arrived to the final skit, a 1990s-era 'women in the workplace' instructional video. Featuring Cecily Strong and Kate McKinnon, along with Rock and Vanessa Bayer. Once more, the writing was really mediocre here.
So, this was really the first clunker of the season. While SNL 40 up to this point has had its ups and downs, each show has been fairly entertaining, but that can't be said with Chris Rock. The only reason the score will be as high as it is is solely because of Prince, who was one of the only entertaining things about this week.
Avg. Score: 6.52 (each segment was scored out of 10, and averaged, including the musical act).
Bill Hader - 8.06
Chris Pratt - 7.5
Sarah Silverman - 7.15
Chris Pratt - 7.5
Sarah Silverman - 7.15
Jim Carrey - 7.01
Chris Rock - 6.52
No comments:
Post a Comment