Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars
FIRST PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE
first George W. Bush (WLF) vs. John Kerry (SEM) debate covers Iraq policy
— A decent opening spiel from Chris’ Jim Lehrer about the presidential candidates wearing a collar to keep them both from walking to the other’s podium.
— To quote something I said in my review of the Bush Sr./Dukakis presidential debate sketch from the season 14 premiere: “The gag with Bush being on a higher platform than Dukakis as they shake each other’s hand after making their entrance would later be copied in a George W. Bush/John Kerry debate sketch in 2004. The gag didn’t even make sense in that context! It made sense here because Dukakis is much shorter than Bush Sr., whereas neither Kerry nor Bush Jr. are short.” It really irks me that they ripped off that Bush Sr./Dukakis height difference gag in tonight’s debate sketch. I know both debate sketches were written by Jim Downey (or at least, I’m assuming they were), but that doesn’t excuse him recycling his own gag, especially since, as I said in the quote, it makes no sense in this context.
— We get the debut of Will’s whinier version of President Bush, which would go on to be the most remembered aspect of Will’s impression.
— Oof. I am now SEVEN MINUTES into this debate sketch, and I have not been laughing much. Bush’s repeated “We’re workin’ haaarrrrrd” has literally been the ONLY part of this very long debate sketch that resonated with me over the years, and that has not changed so far during my current re-watch. And even that “We’re workin’ haaarrrrrd” aspect of this is relied on way too heavily here, as if that’s the only hook Jim Downey could come up with for spoofing Bush here, besides the short bit with Bush praising Saddam Hussein.
— There are absolutely no “Strategery”-esque legendary moments to be found in this presidential debate sketch. No “I can’t believe I’m losing to this guy”-esque legendary moments”. No “It was my understanding that there would be no math”-esque legendary moments.
— Oh, man, this cold opening is just going on and on. Sure, SNL’s presidential debate sketches are typically very long, but more often than not, they’re consistently funny enough to excuse the length and make the time pass by fast. With a dull, lacking debate sketch like tonight’s, on the other hand, the long time length is fully felt.
— Seth and Will seem to be tripping over some lines throughout this.
— I finally got one other good laugh besides Will-as-Bush’s first “We’re workin’ haaarrrrrd” (before that line got run into the ground), and it’s from Seth-as-Kerry’s “That is not flip-flopping, that is pandering! And America deserves a president that knows the difference!”
— Oh, god, I swear, if Will’s Bush says “Workin’ haaarrrrrd” one more time, I’m going to fucking snap. This sketch has gotten to the point where the “Workin’ haaarrrrrd” stuff has become literally the ONLY material they’re having Will’s Bush do anymore. They took a once-funny line and completely ruined it over the course of a single cold opening.
— 13 minutes. This cold opening is just now concluding, after 13 minutes. 13 fucking minutes, people. Not even the first Bush/Gore debate cold opening was that long, and THAT cold opening had actual funny things to say.
— Overall, my god, what a huge disappointment this debate sketch was. A rare flop at this point in SNL history for such a big presidential debate sketch.
STARS: *½
OPENING MONTAGE
— New montage.
— The SNL logo is still the same from the past 9 seasons, but it’s been slightly modified to have far more spacing between the letters (as seen in the second above screencap for this montage).
— Speaking of the SNL logo, there surprisingly isn’t a number 30 added to it to commemorate the 30th season. I wonder why, considering SNL has added an anniversary number to the SNL logo for every other anniversary season ever since season 15.
— After the very unique, fun, and memorable music video style of the preceding season’s opening montage, SNL has gone back to a more standard style. Despite the standard, generic style of this montage, I actually really like the aesthetic of it, with the dark motif and very “late night” feel.
— Fred Armisen has been promoted from featured player to repertory player.
— When announcing Will Forte’s name, Don Pardo mistakenly says “Will Ferr–”, then suddenly cuts himself off and never corrects himself. Don obviously almost called Will Forte “Will Ferrell” before catching his mistake. This is reminiscent of a moment from an episode in the preceding season, where Don mistakenly announced Chris Parnell as “Chris Kattan”, but at least Don corrected himself during THAT particular goof.
— Rob Riggle has been added to the cast tonight.
— This overall montage feels A LOT shorter than the preceding season’s montage.
MONOLOGUE
Alec Baldwin [real] warns host against stealing his moves
— Right out of the gate, Ben Affleck immediately addresses how unusually soon he’s hosting after his last episode, by saying “You’re not watching a rerun. Yes, I did host just five minutes ago.”
— Oh, is that Alec Baldwin’s voice I’m hearing from off-camera?
— Yep, there he is.
— Some good laughs from Alec’s comparisons between himself and Ben.
— Great delivery from Ben of the line “Those aren’t moves, Alec. They’re just the slow-motion trainwreck I like to call my life.”
— Alec to Ben: “Don’t jerk me around, Gigli!”
— I’m finding Alec to be an absolute RIOT in this monologue.
— Alec: “Mike Myers will suck your soul out, then complain about how bad it tastes.” Haha, goddamn. IIRC, Tina would later disclose the fact that she ended up getting chewed out over the phone by an angry Mike Myers, who called up SNL to complain about that soul-sucking line in this monologue. This whole incident is very reminiscent of the notorious Eddie Murphy/David Spade incident. Unlike that, however, where David’s mean-spirited comment about Eddie is still left intact in reruns, SNL would be forced to remove the Mike Myers slam from reruns of this monologue.
— Just now, Alec brags to Ben that he’s hosted 9 times. Odd, considering it’s actually 11 times Alec has hosted up to this point.
— Alec to Ben: “Don’t get too comfortable. Me and Goodman are constantly circling the building every five minutes.”
— An overall strong monologue, with a great performance from Alec.
— At dress rehearsal, Darrell played Alec instead of Alec showing up as himself. I even recall seeing a publicity photo years ago at NBC.com from this version of the monologue (the photo can probably currently be found at GettyImages), and in the photo, Darrell’s not even wearing a wig or anything to look like Alec! Darrell just has his normal slicked-back gray hair, which looks nothing like how Alec’s hair looks at this time. I wonder if Alec not being able to show up for dress rehearsal was perhaps something that happened on VERY short notice, and so SNL was forced to just throw Darrell out there in Alec’s place at the last minute to read off his lines for this monologue, with SNL not even bothering to put him in costume. If so, I’m morbidly curious to see just how bad this monologue HAD to have been with an out-of-place Darrell delivering Alec’s funny dialogue.
STARS: ****
DR. PORKENHEIMER’S BONER JUICE
Dr. Porkenheimer’s Boner Juice emphatically reverses erectile dysfunction
— Meh, a juvenile concept, and not a particularly funny one.
— A particularly cheap attempt at laughs right now, with the ending shot of a satisfied Rob Riggle “pitching a tent” under the bedsheets. I remember that made me laugh a lot when this originally aired, but I can’t even so much as crack a smile at it today. I may be biased, though, because, after the entirety of this SNL season originally aired and I walked away from it feeling the season was a quiet disaster, I would go on to look at this commercial as an embodiment of the bad and lazy humor that dominated this frustrating season.
— This commercial would go on to be re-aired in a few episodes, and IIRC, the aforementioned ending shot of Rob “pitching a tent” under the bedsheets would be replaced by various new and far tamer alternate endings that changed EVERY time this commercial was re-aired in a new episode. Am I remembering correctly? I recall there being at least two different alternate endings used in future re-airings. I guess I’ll see for myself when I cover the episodes that this commercial is re-aired in.
STARS: *½
DEBBIE DOWNER
Debbie Downer kills the festive mood at (host)’s birthday party
— Oh, god. This sketch has officially become recurring, a decision I strongly disagree with, for reasons I explained at the end of my review of the legendary first Debbie Downer sketch.
— Okay, after not laughing for tonight’s Debbie Downer sketch so far, I do kinda like the part right now with the camera doing several mini-zoom-ins on Debbie Downer as she lists off the name of each of the latest tropical storms.
— After being into this sketch at first, the studio audience is noticeably laughing less and less as this sketch progresses. Man, this sketch is dying. Without the performers’ epic laughing meltdown from the first Debbie Downer installment, this sketch’s formula is exposed for how weak and annoyingly repetitive it is.
— Did they have to repeat the “It’s the number one killer of domestic cats (*meow meooooowwww*)” line from the first Debbie Downer installment?
— Overall, boy, this sketch did absolutely NOTHING for me, aside from the aforementioned tropical storms bit. Why couldn’t SNL have just left a classic one-off sketch alone? This reminds me a lot of how, 10 years earlier, the season premiere of the notorious season 20 made the mistake of doing a second installment of the classic first Buh-Bye sketch, and even placed it in an early spot in the show, expecting it to be another hit, only for it to fall HORRIBLY flat and die a painful death. At least in that case, however, SNL learned from their mistake and didn’t do any more Buh-Bye installments after that. With Debbie Downer, on the other hand, I have god-knows-how-many more installments to put up with after this episode.
— This sketch would later be replaced with the dress rehearsal version in reruns, which is even prefaced with a disclaimer stating, from what I can remember, “The following sketch is from dress rehearsal, simply because it worked better”, which is noteworthy, as I don’t think there have been any other instances in SNL history where a rerun actually pointed out a dress rehearsal substitution for a sketch. The reason for a dress rehearsal substitution of this particular Debbie Downer sketch is because the dress version features a lot of breaking from the performers (though definitely not as much as the famous first Debbie Downer sketch), which the audience, of course, loved. The use of the dress version of this sketch in reruns and it actually being pointed out with a disclaimer is clearly SNL fully admitting how much of a failure the live version of this sketch was. IIRC, the dress version of this sketch shown in reruns is also (rightfully) moved to a much later spot in the show than the live version of the sketch was.
STARS: *½
SWIFT BOAT VETERANS FOR TRUTH
Swift Boat Veterans expand their list of John Kerry’s deficiencies
— The unnecessary reliance on a gay marriage reference for a cheap laugh is so sadly typical of this era, and an unfortunate harbinger of how particularly heavy this season will be relying on hacky, gay-stereotype humor.
— This commercial is slowly getting funnier and funnier as it goes along.
— I love the little detail of how Will’s only credential listed on the bottom of the screen is “saw ‘Platoon’”. That makes me wonder if the guys who were shown being interviewed before him also had a funny credential listed on the bottom of the screen, and I just didn’t notice.
— A priceless dry delivery from Will of the word “catsup”.
— Overall, this was a good political piece, but it wasn’t quite as strong or as smart as I had remembered.
STARS: ***½
CAMPAIGN STOP
James Carville (host) wants John Kerry (SEM) to go on the offensive
— The two sketches in tonight’s episode that have Seth playing John Kerry end up being Seth’s ONLY appearances all night, which is surprising, especially knowing in retrospect how hard this season is going to be pushing Seth as the new male star of the show in light of Jimmy Fallon’s departure.
— Oh, no. Maya’s Theresa Heinz-Kerry breaking out into a brief song was just plain unnecessary and unfunny. This is yet ANOTHER unfortunate harbinger of what’s to come this season, as this season is going to be relying particularly hard on Maya singing in sketches, much to my chagrin back when this season originally aired.
— James Carville to John Kerry: “You beat George Bush in a talking contest. That’s like Wilt Chamberlain playing basketball against Stephen Hawking and beat him by ten points. The man can’t talk, John!”
— Ben is fucking fantastic as James Carville. He is slaying me all throughout this sketch. I think I like his impression even more than Bill Hader’s Carville impression from years later, and that’s saying something, as Bill’s Carville is great in its own right.
— I remember it being pointed out by several online SNL fans back when this originally aired that Seth can be seen mouthing Ben’s lines throughout this sketch.
— I know I said in a recent episode review that I’ve gotten burned out on Darrell’s Bill Clinton, but it’s winning me back over here, now that they’ve finally taken him out of the Weekend Update setting he was stuck in during the preceding season.
STARS: ****
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest & Jaheim [real] perform “My Place”
WEEKEND UPDATE
New Jerseyan Tony Soprano (James Gandolfini) on Jim McGreevey resignation
host points out hypocrisy of Matt Damon’s call for integrity in acting
Elton John’s (HOS) songs fail to make amends for his behavior in Taiwan
— A new Weekend Update era has begun, with Amy joining as Tina’s new co-anchor.
— I like the new Update opening title sequence.
— Just-departed cast member Jimmy Fallon does the voice-over in the new Update opening title sequence (probably because Amy previously did the voice-over for the Update opening title sequence during most of the Fallon/Fey era), and him doing this voice-over in the style of “hyper young cool dude” instead of “professional news broadcast voice-over” is SO WRONG for Update. Hell, he even literally shouts an excited “Yaaaay!” at the end of his voice-over here! I kid you not, folks. WTF??? Thankfully, SNL would remove that “Yaaaay!” from the title sequence of all subsequent Fey/Poehler Updates.
— They’re still using the Update set from the Fallon/Fey era, but something about it’s color has definitely changed. It looks…I don’t know, glossier? A different shade of brown? SOMETHING looks different about the coloring of the set, but I can’t put my finger on what exactly it is.
— A terrible opening Bush joke from Tina. As I said in a review from late in the preceding season, Tina’s developed a bad habit lately of using her worst and most desperate joke of the night as her opening joke.
— Amy’s very first Update joke just now wasn’t bad, but she kinda ruined it for me by making an out-of-place cutesy, hammy big smile at the camera immediately after she finished the joke.
— Oh, god, and now, right after what I said above about Amy’s first joke, Amy actually interrupts Tina’s next joke to giddily cheer “That was my first joke!”, which Tina then responds to by joining in on Amy’s giddiness and motioning the audience to actually APPLAUD Amy for doing her first joke. Are you fucking kidding me?!? In all my years of watching SNL, I’ve never seen a new Update anchor basically BEG the audience to freakin’ applaud the fact that they got through their very first Update joke, as if they’re a child. Ugh, this new Fey/Poehler Update team is already starting off very worrisome for me.
— The use of clips of real footage from the presidential debate feels unusual for Update at this point of SNL’s run, but would go on to be a semi-regular aspect of Fey/Poehler Updates. I remember how some online SNL fans back at this time in 2004/2005 complained about SNL trying too hard to be like The Daily Show with their new gimmick of commenting on clips of real news footage. I think SNL fans would later go on to get used to seeing that more often on Update nowadays, with Colin Jost and Michael Che often playing clips of Trump saying stupid shit.
— Nice surprise appearance from James Gandolfini as “a New Jersey resident”. I’m enjoying his performance here.
— I like Tina’s remark after Gandolfini leaves: “That is the scariest man…I have ever been attracted to.”
— Amy seems to be trying way too hard in her delivery of some jokes.
— Just now, Tina has mentioned her former co-anchor Jimmy Fallon in a jokingly unflattering manner, when telling Amy she thinks things are going to work out well between her and Amy as a new Update duo.
— A rarity to see a host do an Update commentary as themselves, or, as Ben’s billed here in a tongue-in-cheek manner, “a Hollywood actor”. Between Gandolfini being billed as “a New Jersey resident” and now Ben being billed as “a Hollywood actor”, are none of the Update guests going to be using a name anymore in this new Update era?
— I liked Ben’s self-deprecating joke about making movies with his girlfriend.
— I’m surprised Ben’s commentary is ALREADY over, after only about one minute. Most of his commentary surprisingly didn’t do much for me.
— Ugh, Horatio’s Elton John.
— Another acknowledgment of Jimmy Fallon’s departure, with Horatio’s Elton John starting his commentary by looking around confusedly and asking “Where’s my Jimmy boy?”
— Blah, these Elton John songs from Horatio are not working for me AT ALL. Just typical self-indulgent hammy Horatio Sanz crap with bad writing.
— Overall, all I can say about this inaugural Update of the Fey/Poehler era is: oof. Normally, if a new Update duo has a rough start, I’d think “Maybe they just need time to grow.” But I’ve already seen all of the Fey/Poehler Updates back when they originally aired, and I recall their Updates drawing A LOT of ire from me in how weak, annoying, frustrating, and unprofessional they were. So, yeah, I don’t think things ever get better for this Update duo, but I’ll see as I go through this era.
STARS: **
ESCALATOR
stalled mall escalator proves disastrous for overly dramatic shoppers
— Good mock-dramatic, over-the-top, disaster-movie-esque performances from the cast in the way their characters are overreacting to a simple broken-down escalator.
— They’re overdoing Ben’s slaps to Rachel WAY too much. It was only funny the first time.
— I love Chris giving up and committing suicide by jumping off the escalator.
— Rachel’s long, exaggerated yell of “NO!” causes Ben to break character by laughing. This has made me realize that we’ve gotten little-to-no instances of breaking from Ben before this point in tonight’s episode compared to his episode from the preceding season, in which he laughed in practically every single sketch.
— Ben’s Spanish conversation with Maya is pretty funny.
— I got a good laugh from Will’s fireman character accidentally falling from the rope holding him.
— An overall solid and fun sketch. Much better than I remember it being in my past viewings.
STARS: ****
WEDDING
obnoxious deejay’s (host) inappropriate tunes derail a wedding reception
— Not too crazy about this cliched “obnoxious DJ at a dignified gathering” concept.
— Rob Riggle’s been stuck in nothing but dull straight roles for the entirety of this first episode of his. An unfortunate harbinger (which is something I’ve been saying A LOT in this review) of things to come for him in what would end up being a short-lived SNL tenure.
— A good laugh from Ben playing the song “Sister Christian” during the priest’s speech.
— Ben to the priest: “Alright, father, stay away from the kiddie tables, alright?”
— Despite my dislike of this cliched premise, Ben’s giving this his all as he always does, and there are a few laughs.
— When Amy and Rob complain about Ben playing “Who Let The Dogs Out” instead of the slow song they wanted to dance to, I like Ben complying by slowing down the tempo of “Who Let The Dogs Out”.
— This sketch is going on too long, and should’ve ended earlier.
STARS: **½
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Na-Nana-Na”
A NIGHT AT CAMP DAVID
by Alison Jackson- a dramatization of Bush substance abuse at Camp David
— Much like the “Adventures of Harold” short film in the preceding season’s finale, we get a huge change of pace for this SNL era, with another out-of-the-ordinary film that involves no recognizable performers. This particular film is by Alison Jackson, who was hired to be SNL’s regular filmmaker of this season. However, tonight’s film ends up being the ONLY film of hers to ever make it on the air, aside from a pre-taped Weekend Update mini-piece that airs later this season. Most of Jackson’s attempts to get films on the air this season end up not making it past dress rehearsal.
— I really like the unique aesthetic of this, as well as the music, but I have not been enjoying this film itself all that much.
— Overall, I give SNL credit for trying something completely unlike anything they had ever done before, and I liked certain individual aspects of this film, but the film as a whole didn’t really entertain me like it should’ve. I think I can see why Alison Jackson’s attempts to be SNL’s regular filmmaker of this season ended up failing, but I still say SNL should’ve aired a second film of hers, just so we could judge the quality of her as an SNL filmmaker more fairly.
STARS: **
GOODNIGHTS
IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS
— A weak and disappointing season premiere, immediately showing signs of how troubled this infamous-among-hardcore-SNL-nerds-but-forgotten-among-general-SNL-fans season is going to be. That interminably dull and one-note Bush/Kerry debate cold opening already got the night off on the wrong foot, and the episode as a whole never fully took off, despite some solid bright spots here and there. A very tepid and worrisome debut of a new Weekend Update era also didn’t help. Ben Affleck was a strong host once again, but he’s definitely been given much better episodes before and after this.
MY PERSONAL CHOICE OF “BEST OF” MOMENTS FOR THIS EPISODE, REPRESENTED WITH SCREENCAPS
HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING SEASON (2003-04)
a slight step down
My full set of screencaps for this episode is here
TOMORROW
Queen Latifah