Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars
NIGHTLINE
Rosie O’Donnell (HOS) on Martha Stewart (ANG) guilty verdict
— Another Nightline cold opening so soon?
— Some funny lines from Kenan.
— Will’s smug “bitch” talk is making me laugh.
— Oh, god, fucking spare me. Horatio’s tired Rosie O’Donnell impression for the second damn episode in a row. Ugh.
— Hell, yeah! The return of Ana Gasteyer and her Martha Stewart impression. Feels so good to see Ana for the first time since she left the cast.
— Seeing Darrell’s Ted Koppel and Ana’s Martha Stewart speaking to each other interestingly makes me feel like I’m watching something from around season 23.
STARS: ***½
MONOLOGUE
AMP, MAR, RAD, SEM are excited to act alongside charismatic host
— I like Amy telling Colin Firth “You’re the first real actor we’ve had on the show in a long time”, as it’s SNL acknowledging their own questionable decision to have lots of unconventional non-actor hosts this season. Of course, that still doesn’t stop SNL from continuing to go overboard with unconventional, non-actor hosts in the final two months of this season.
— Maya: “I tried to get Ian McKellen to do Shakespeare with me, but he would only talk to Jimmy and Kylie Minogue.”
— Rachel: “I’ve just always had a fantasy of putting on one of these corset things and going to town on some English dude.”
— Great to get the return of Seth’s uncanny Hugh Grant impression.
— I like the little joke with Seth having Amy’s panties in his pockets, hinting at a relationship between the two.
— A big laugh from Colin asking Seth to do his self-proclaimed great Hugh Grant impression, being unaware that he had just done it.
STARS: ***½
ACCENTS
British actor’s (host) awful Southern accent derails Civil War movie
— Meh, I’m not caring at all for the main joke with Colin’s American accent being effeminate and flamboyant. Yet another display of this SNL era’s love of gay stereotypes.
— Finesse In A Dress alert. And do we need Jimmy stifling his laughter during this Finesse-in-drag walk-on, as if he’s never seen it before?
— Uh-oh, now we get Chris doing a very stereotypical Asian accent.
— A lame “project scrapped” ending that SNL would go on to lazily reuse in a few other sketches that they clearly didn’t know how to end.
STARS: *½
¡SHOW BIZ GRANDE EXPLOSION!
Fericito helps host with his joke delivery
— Interesting seeing Fericito starring in his own sketch. But damn, does it have to be in a typical lazy talk format?
— Horatio is okay as Fericito’s bandleader.
— Meh, all of Fericito’s “Ay dios mio!”s get tiring after a while, and he’s been doing it ad nausaem in this sketch.
— I like how Colin’s various jokes are falling flat with both Fericito and the bandleader.
STARS: ***
TV FUNHOUSE
by RBS- Michael Powell announces FCC’s cartoon bowdlerization standards
— A lot of laughs from the unnecessary censoring done to classic cartoon clips.
— Great Howard Stern ending, paying homage to the ending of the legendary Daffy Duck cartoon Duck Amuck.
STARS: ****
TRIAL
guilty Tim Calhoun leans on lawyer (host) for Senate committee testimony
— Wow, interesting how Fred and Will’s respective breakout character, Fericito and Tim Calhoun, who, in the past, have only appeared on Weekend Update and hosts’ monologues, have both been spun-off into their own sketch on the same night. Fericito is okay, but I’m far more onboard with the idea of Tim Calhoun starring in a sketch, as he’s always a killer character. This would end up being his only non-Weekend Update appearance.
— Some good laughs from Calhoun always having to be fed his answers from Colin, word-by-word.
— I love the audio tape played of Calhoun’s money-laundering scheme.
— While I prefer Calhoun delivering non-sequitur one-liners like he typically does in his Update appearances, he’s definitely still working for me in this sketch.
— Tim Calhoun: “What if you didn’t have the tape?” Chris: “Well, we DO have the tape.” Tim Calhoun: “Ohhh, nooooo!”
— Odd how the sketch just ends on an extended close-up of Chris. Feels like that’s not intentional.
STARS: ****
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Sunrise”
WEEKEND UPDATE
MAR reports as WASP housewives riot in protest of Martha Stewart verdict
award-laden Peter Jackson (HOS) secures pity prize for Elijah Wood (RAD)
Bill Clinton (DAH) explains why he should be John Kerry’s running mate
— Boy, some really weak opening jokes from Tina about Martha Stewart.
— Interesting how they’re doing a remote segment with Maya playing herself as a reporter. Feels like a throwback to the original days where Laraine Newman was Update’s regular reporter for remote segments.
— The Martha Stewart riots segment is okay.
— At the end of the Martha Stewart riots segment, couldn’t they have given Amy something funnier to yell into Maya’s microphone than a simple “Free Martha!”? The brief buildup to that had me expecting a great one-liner from Amy.
— Very funny seeing Rachel play Elijah Wood. There really is a strong facial resemblance between them, and I kinda wish SNL had gotten some mileage out of that when Elijah had recently hosted a few months prior.
— Ugh, typical awkward halting and hesitation during Horatio’s line deliveries. Dammit, Horatio.
— I like Darrell’s Bill Clinton greeting Jimmy as “Fallonius”, as a callback to the nickname bit that Jimmy and Tina did earlier in this Update.
— Darrell’s Clinton saying John Edwards is so boring, he’d have sex in the missionary position is a line that SNL already had Darrell’s Clinton say about another politician in an earlier Clinton sketch (I think the cold opening from the Christina Ricci episode in season 25).
— Some fun lines from Darrell’s Clinton. I especially like his ending line, when expressing interest in becoming John Kerry’s running mate: “I’ll put the ‘vice’ back in ‘vice president’.”
STARS: ***
HOTEL WILSON
bellboy (KET) attempts to personally service (host)’s prostitute request
— Kenan’s random attempts to sexually assault Colin are getting no reaction from the audience (nor me).
— It feels kinda weird seeing early-era Kenan doing this type of raunchy material. I almost feel like I’m watching his Nickelodeon-era teen self doing adult material he’s too young for.
— Boy, this sketch is terrible. Yet another display of this SNL era’s annoying love of hacky homoerotic humor (which only gets worse the following season).
— Awful ending.
— Overall, not a single laugh from me during this entire sketch.
STARS: *
MEET THE PRESS
John Edwards’ (WLF) so-called attack ads are pro-Kerry
— Quite a lot of airtime for Darrell tonight.
— Boy, that smiling photo of John Kerry in the first attack ad is just plain creepy (the third, fourth, and fifth above screencaps for this sketch), especially the way the camera is slowly zooming in on it.
— Some laughs from John Edwards’ so-called “negative” ads against John Kerry.
— This sketch feels a little slow and dull, and isn’t making me laugh too much outside of the aforementioned “negative” ads. I want to like this more than I am, especially considering how much Will has been knocking it out of the park with all of the other lead roles he’s been getting these past few episodes (great to see him getting such an increase in airtime, by the way, even though I know in retrospect that it sadly doesn’t last).
STARS: **½
THE SOPRANOS
after a 15-month hiatus, The Sopranos can’t remember their plot lines
— Wow, Darrell’s big night continues. I cannot remember the last time he got this many lead roles in a single episode.
— I got a good laugh from Seth’s little “Oh, snap” when dashing out of the house after being told he’s supposed to be in Italy.
— Jimmy is hilarious as Little Steven.
— An okay concept of The Sopranos’ own characters not even remembering what happened the preceding season due to the extremely long hiatus between seasons.
STARS: ***
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “What Am I To You?”
JESUS: HOLLYWOOD VS HISTORY
Benny Hill (WLF) film has lust, not passion
— Second episode in a row with a History Channel sketch.
— Very funny idea of a Benny Hill-starring Jesus epic.
— I recall an online SNL fan once saying that this movie-within-a-sketch’s opening shot of Will’s Benny Hill on the cross is one of the most bizarre images in SNL history. That open-mouthed “Woe is me” expression on Will’s face during that opening shot of him on the cross (the second above screencap for this sketch) kills me every time I watch this sketch.
— An absolutely hilarious turn with Benny Hill’s Jesus doing a typical wacky fast-paced chase scene with two bikini-clad girls while he’s still nailed to the cross.
— Funny ending line from Colin about how Benny Hill was so emotionally crushed by the movie’s failure that he died “just 18 years later”.
STARS: ****½
GOODNIGHTS
IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS
— A decent episode. A few things really didn’t work for me (particularly Hotel Wilson, which, if I didn’t know better, I would swear is a season 30 sketch), but they were outnumbered by what worked, especially a few great Will Forte-starring pieces and a solid TV Funhouse.
MY PERSONAL CHOICE OF “BEST OF” MOMENTS FOR THIS EPISODE, REPRESENTED WITH SCREENCAPS
HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Christina Aguilera)
a mild step up
My full set of screencaps for this episode is here
TOMORROW
Ben Affleck