SNL (11/7)

Pretty mediocre... Swift gets major points for trying and was in almost every skit, but that episode was a C- at best.

Kristen Wiig tries way too hard. I know she's funny, but her characters suck.

Seth Meyers sucks and Amy Poehler needs to stay away.

Too many of the regulars, especially Sudeikis and Armisen, have this look on their faces that they think what they're doing is the funniest thing ever, when in reality, they're pretty awful.

 

I thought Swift was funny too. Not hilarious, but funny. The Twilight spoof was the best part for me. One of the keys to being a good host is totally throwing yourself into the skits and not being afraid to make fun of yourself. You have to abandon your desire to be cool. I think Taylor did that. ]

That said, I HATE Nicolas Fein. HATE him.

 

Al Gore was actually a pretty decent host of SNL

 

The worst part of this season is that Update has sucked. You expect the rest of the show to suck, but Update is usually pretty consistently funny because it's a hell of a lot easier to come up with one-liners about current events than it is to write a skit about it.

Nicholas Fein is so dreadfully unfunny it's scary.

 

For the life of me, I can't understand why so many characters get to fail over and over and over again. Meyers is the head writer and Lorne is still the producer so I assume they have the final say of what goes on the air. Well, how can they possibly think that Nicolas Fein or Gilly or Wiig's one-note character who out-brags everyone while she plays with her hair is funny over and over again? It's ok to fail miserably once, or even twice. But 80 percent of Fred Armisen's and Wiig's characters are painful. The Fein "I'm struggling to come up with jokes off the news!" thing no longer makes sense even if drugs are involved, it's so bad. It even sucks as meta-commentary on stand-up.

I Kristen Wiig is actually very talented, but she needs focus, editing and direction worse than any cast member in history. No one beats a one-note joke into the ground quicker than she does. She has a weird sense of humor, and occasionally it's funny. The Target skits with Timberlake and even dumbass Dane Cook were funny. But the others have been baaad. The overreliance on bad characters is the show's biggest problem right now.

 

Hader and Samberg will have decent careers once they leave the show and so will Wiig. Very little of it will have to do with anything they did on SNL. Kenan Thompson will do OK too...

The rest of them? Other than the newbies who haven't done much yet, the rest of the group, like Meyers and Armisen and Sudeikis are just dreadfully unfunny and just suck.

 

i don't get the reaction for amy poehler. she was an eh cast member but the audience erupts like she's the greatest thing ever when she comes on weekend update.

 

Though, the Bon Jovi thing she did was one of the best of the last decade. Can't stand her show, though. Cheap, unfunny ripoff of The Office.

 

The Twilight spoof was pretty great. You can tell it had some production value and a solid, satiric premise.

 

wow, couldn't agree to disagree more. i think amy's great, as is "parks and recreation." been stronger than "the office" this season, imo.

 

People who hate Parks and Rec should give it another shot. It's turned into a very funny show, similar to how The Office took some time to come together. It doesn't have the emotional strength The Office did with the J/P stuff, but it definitely hits on some of the right notes on the inane, infuriating absurdities of life.

I don't think Amy was a meh cast member at all. I think she was actually one of the most talented women the show has ever had. And I think with her going through her who pregnancy on the air, people formed an emotional connection with her they wouldn't have otherwise. Saw here on Inside the Actors Studio recently and Lipton was asking her about the Palin rap skit on Weekend Update, which was one of the last things she did. She said what she remembered most about it was her son (four days from being born at that point) was kicking her like crazy all through the song. My wife heard that and starting crying happy tears. Pohler carried that show for a handful of years when it would have been otherwise unwatchable and formed and emotional connection with people doing it. That's what those applause were about.