Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars
A MESSAGE FROM THE VICE PRESIDENT
in besieged White House, Dick Cheney (DAH) disputes smoke & fire linkage
— What’s that watery sound I keep hearing off-camera when Darrell’s Dick Cheney is first shown? Some kind of sound glitch in the video file I’m watching of this episode? And what was with the audience’s delayed (but pointless) opening applause before Darrell starts speaking? This cold opening is already starting off awkwardly.
— Darrell’s Cheney downplaying the literal smoke in the room isn’t providing any laughs for me. A lame gag.
— That’s it?!? This cold opening is over already?!? Geez, this cold opening was two-and-a-half minutes of NOTHING. Very lame political “comedy”.
STARS: *
MONOLOGUE
host fields questions of audience members including fiancee musical guest
— Lance Armstrong, regarding getting tired: “Come on, I’m Lance Armstrong. I don’t get tired!” Blah. Then we get a joke about Lance getting his urine tested that holds up very poorly nowadays, for obvious reasons.
— Fred’s gleeful French accent is hilarious.
— A memorable bit with Lance’s jealous cycling teammates sternly asking him “Are you hosting alone or with the team?”, which gets a strong audience reaction.
— A good laugh from the odd way Lance’s teammates all walk away in unison.
— J.B. Smoove steals this monologue as always.
— Liz Cackowski is starting to become the Sarah Silverman or Paula Pell of this era’s questions-from-the-audience monologues.
— When asked about his and Sheryl Crow’s engagement, Lance responds “Yes. We’re definitely getting married.” Oof, talk about things in this monologue that have aged horribly. Not only would these two break up just a few months after this episode without ever getting married, but it would be before NBC even first reran this episode. As you can imagine, that rerun made for an awkward watch back in 2006.
STARS: ***
CELEBRITY IRONMAN
host struggles with running & swimming triathlon legs
Quite Frankly With Stephen A. Smith (FIM)- he enjoys favored status at ESPN
— Chris Parnell has returned, after taking the last two episodes off to film episodes of an upcoming new NBC sitcom that ends up never even airing. Even though I feel Bill and especially Jason will render Chris a little obsolete over the course of this season by slowly and successfully taking over the type of roles he’d usually get, I still always love and appreciate Chris as a performer, and it feels refreshing to see him again after he’s been away for two episodes.
— Poor Andy, with his only two appearances of the night (the monologue and this) being small non-speaking roles.
— Some mild laughs from Lance’s bad attempts at running, but this isn’t a particularly hilarious premise for a lead-off sketch.
— In retrospect, Finesse’s Stephen A. Smith impression holds up kinda poorly after getting used to the spot-on impression of Smith that Jay Pharoah would later do (even if I don’t care for the very one-note Weekend Update commentaries his Smith would appear in). Didn’t care much for the writing of Finesse’s scene either.
— At one point during Seth’s interview of Lance, the greenscreened background of outdoor scenery accidentally gets replaced for a few seconds by a black screen stating the words “Fire Alarm” (screencap below), which is the SNL control room’s cue title screen for a fake ad that’s going to air right after this sketch.
STARS: **½
FIRE ALERT 3000
the Totally Rad Fire Alert 3000 detects smoke & plays hits from the ’80s
— Good to see Chris in yet another big role tonight early in tonight’s episode.
— Odd how this is the second fireman (or fire chief, in this commercial’s case) Fred has played tonight.
— Pretty fun idea for a fake ad, and there are some good laughs from the upbeat 80s music playing during drastic house fires.
— Chris’ carefree dancing while Fred is sternly informing us of the importance of fire safety is very amusing. Chris’ performance is very fun in this sketch, especially when juxtaposed alongside Fred’s serious straight man character. Given the way Chris is usually typecast as dull and humorless straight men on SNL, I’m surprised SNL didn’t have Fred and Chris playing each other’s roles in this commercial, but I’m glad they didn’t.
STARS: ****
HARMONIES
musical guest joins Indigo Girls (AMP) & (RAD) atop a mountain
— Maybe it’s because there’s not much laughs elsewhere here, but it’s kinda funny watching the dogs wandering around the set and sniffing the guitars all throughout this sketch. SNL’s crew must’ve sprayed those guitars (and perhaps the whole set in general) with some kind of food scent beforehand to keep the dogs from leaving the set.
— Not caring for much of this sketch.
— This already-dull sketch has gotten pretty awkward and slow-paced once Lance has entered.
— Did I just hear Lance pronounce “naked” two different ways in two back-to-back sentences?
STARS: **
THE O’REILLY FACTOR
Bill O’Reilly’s (DAH) irrelevant misconceptions bewilder guests
— Darrell Hammond does a great impression of Darrell Hammond in a wig and prosthetic nose. While he actually has Bill O’Reilly’s speech pattern down fairly well here, the voice itself just sounds like Darrell. This impression doesn’t even compare to the spot-on one that Jeff Richards did. Yet another reminder of how, when it comes to celebrity impressions (especially political ones), what should’ve been a successful passing-of-the-torch between Darrell and Jeff sadly got screwed up horribly. By this point in late 2005, Jeff should’ve been in his fifth season on the show, flourishing as SNL’s resident impressionist, while Darrell would’ve been long gone from the show, gracefully bowing out sometime around 2002 or 2003.
— Another sketch this season where Darrell annoyingly keeps coughing loudly off-camera while someone else is speaking.
— O’Reilly’s idiotic “facts” throughout this sketch are pretty funny.
— Lance looks convincing as someone from the army.
— Darrell’s a tad stumbly throughout this sketch.
— Did we need Darrell pausing for SO LONG just now, in what appeared to be an unnecessary attempt to milk extra laughs from the audience?
— The letters during the Mail Bag segment are pretty funny.
STARS: ***
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Good Is Good”
WEEKEND UPDATE
drunk Harriet Miers (RAD) assesses why she won’t be on the Supreme Court
Bitch Fight News Quiz- AMP sorts Lindsay Lohan & Maureen Dowd quotes
FIM honors Rosa Parks by staging a sit-in at the Weekend Update desk
White Sox star Scott Podsednik [real] pegs TIF & AMP as Chicago Cubs fans
terrorist Mrs. Butterworth (KET) may be source of maple syrup odor in NYC
— When Rachel’s Harriet Miers starts to break out into Vanessa Williams’ song “Save The Best For Last”, I like Tina’s delivery when telling her “Don’t sing any more of that, or we’ll have to pay for it.”
— Very solid performance from Rachel here.
— Even when merely being heard off-camera in an answering machine greeting message, Will’s President Bush impression cracks me up.
— Didn’t care for the Bitch Fight Quiz bit with Tina and Amy.
— Not a bad premise of Finesse’s commentary, staging a Rosa Parks-inspired sit-in at the white-dominated Update desk.
— Finesse’s comment about Condoleezza Rice cracked me up.
— A weak and lazy ending to Finesse’s commentary.
— Ugh at Tina’s gay-themed “smoking pole” joke.
— Wow, not to be outdone, Amy immediately follows Tina’s awful “smoking pole” joke with a fucking terrible Girl Kills Bear joke of her own. Man, who writes this crap?!?
— Two athletes from two different sports appearing in the same episode (Lance Armstrong and Scott Podsednik)?
— As someone who lived in Chicago for 10 years (funnily enough, I moved away from Chicago just a week before this episode originally aired, to move back to my hometown of New York), I’m personally liking all the insider Chicago references that Tina and Amy are making during the Scott Podsednik commentary; insider references that anyone who’s never lived in Chicago would scratch their heads at. These references are really speaking to me. Tina and Amy referencing the jingle of those hilariously low-budget Moo & Oink commercials especially made me laugh, but it, of course, was met with puzzled silence by the studio audience.
— Kenan In A Dress alert.
— Didn’t crack a smile during Kenan’s entire Mrs. Butterworth bit. It was just plain dumb, and not the kind of dumb I like.
— This overall Update felt super-long and never-ending. And unfortunately, this Update was also the inevitable return of the typical bad Fey/Poehler Update humor, after I found their last Update more tolerable than usual.
STARS: **
LANCE’S SONG
musical guest can barely stomach the awful love song host wrote for her
— Lance badly singing and laughing his way through his first song isn’t exactly funny to me.
— Boy, Sheryl Crow is an even worse actor than Lance is.
— Bill’s mere look is the only humor I’ve been getting here.
— Ugh, I am really not caring for this sketch.
STARS: *½
TRUMP’S CAMEO
Donald Trump (DAH) goes off-script while shooting Days Of Our Lives cameo
— A variation of the strong Trump Promo Shoot sketches from the preceding season. This time, we’re actually seeing the off-camera director that Seth always plays in these.
— Darrell’s Trump inexplicably doing a bad cartoonish Italian accent for one take is pretty funny.
— A mild laugh from the poorly-edited final take of Trump’s scene.
— Overall, despite some laughs, this was a very pale variation of season 30’s Trump Promo Shoot sketches. This lacked the strength of those sketches. (And I never thought I’d say season 30 was better at doing something than season 31 is.)
STARS: **
CAROL!
on a blind date, (host) is inexplicably smitten with indelicate Carol
— Hoooooooo, boy. Here’s the debut of an infamous series of sketches starring a spun-off character from the preceding season’s Key Party sketch. When these Carol sketches originally aired, I absolutely HATED them, as I’m sure a lot of people do. But in more recent years, I’ve seen some people say they appreciate these sketches in a “So bad, it’s good” way. It’ll be interesting to see what my reaction to these sketches will be now. I want to appreciate the “So bad, it’s good”-ness of this sketch like some others do, so I’ll now go into this sketch with an open mind, but don’t be surprised if I end up being salty as fuck towards it.
— Yet another recurring character in this era that has their own opening title sequence and theme song. At this point, I wonder if these 2004-2006 years have equaled the number of title sequence and theme song-having recurring characters that the late 80s/early 90s years had.
— Jason’s a funny straight man here.
— So far, yeah, this is a parade of just about every terrible habit Horatio has as a performer.
— I’m sensing somewhat of a “So bad, it’s good” quality to this, but I’m being more bored than amused by this. At least I’m not outright annoyed like I used to be by these sketches.
— Something about the “HA!” that Lance unintentionally lets out when Horatio causes him to break made me crack up myself.
— Didn’t care for Carol suddenly delivering a manly-voiced “I’m gonna go push one out and smoke a joint in the bathroom.”
— Overall, mixed feelings on this. I could somewhat appreciate the “So bad, it’s good” factor at certain points, but a lot of this did nothing for me. Like I said earlier, though, at least I didn’t hate this and wasn’t annoyed, like I was when these Carol sketches originally aired. Maybe these sketches will continue to slowly grow on me more and more as I review the subsequent installments.
STARS: **
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Strong Enough”
NOISY SIDEKICK
(WLF) cackles at mobster’s (HOS) jokes during interrogation of (host)
— I recall once hearing that Will based his high-pitched laugh throughout this sketch on his mother, who we actually met on the show the preceding season, in a Mother’s Day song Will sang to her on Weekend Update. Based on how Will’s mom looked in that Update appearance, I cannot picture Will’s bizarre-sounding laugh coming out of that woman. Also, it’s funny how this is the second episode in a row with a sketch based on a cast member’s mother, as the preceding episode’s Creighton Boys School sketch was based on Seth’s mother, according to commenter HelloStuart. Speaking of this trend of sketches based on cast members’ mothers, and speaking specifically of Will’s mother, we interestingly get a certain odd (and rare to see, as it would be removed from reruns) Butt Pregnancy sketch in the very next episode that ends with a twist about Will Forte himself being who the woman in the sketch was butt-pregnant with.
— Will’s bizarre laughing is cracking me up. He’s one of the few performers who could make a thin sketch like this funny. It’s not one of the better of Will’s oddball sketches, but it works.
— In addition to his laugh, I also like the wiseguy voice Will’s speaking with here, a voice I don’t think I’ve ever heard Will use elsewhere.
— Ha, Will’s shrieking each time he gets shot is hilarious.
— Horatio is surprisingly a decent straight man here, and he’s not breaking at Will’s antics at all.
— The show must be running long, judging by the audience being cued to applaud a few seconds too early at the end of this sketch, and the fact that the following goodnights get cut off very early.
STARS: ***½
GOODNIGHTS
IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS
— Our first weak episode of the season. A lot of poor or blah things in this episode, and almost nothing stood out as great. This episode as a whole had a flat feel, even despite some of the things that worked. Having an athlete host giving forgettable performances all night probably contributed even further to that flat feel.
MY PERSONAL CHOICE OF “BEST OF” MOMENTS FOR THIS EPISODE, REPRESENTED WITH SCREENCAPS
HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Catherine Zeta-Jones)
a step down
My full set of screencaps for this episode is here
TOMORROW
Jason Lee hosts. We also get a new female addition to the cast.