Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars
BUSH’S PLAN FOR IRAQ
George W. Bush (JAS) addresses suggestions of Iraq Study Group & others
— Wow, this is the THIRD consecutive cold opening with Jason’s George W. Bush impression. I guess SNL is trying really hard to establish Jason as their new Bush.
— Pretty funny touch with the sly, smug looks Jason’s Bush gives into the camera after each time he reads “Dear Mr. President” at the beginning of each individual letter.
— A laugh from Jason-as-Bush’s line about how velociraptors have been extinct “for, like, 500 years”.
— Meh, the “Bush gives a smug look into the camera after reading the beginning of each letter” gag is getting old, and the audience agrees. Jason had to really exaggerate his third smug look into the camera to milk so much as a tiny chuckle from the audience.
— Three cold openings in and Jason has been coming into his own in the role of Bush, even if he has yet to be given any noteworthy material.
STARS: ***
MONOLOGUE
real estate agents (KRW), (AMP), (MAR) reproach host; Alec Baldwin cameo
— I’m halfway through this monologue, and I can’t find anything to say so far. The “real estate agents are unhappy with Annette Bening’s portrayal of them” premise has started to get old within this.
— An Alec Baldwin cameo, just a few episodes after he hosted, and years before frequent Alec Baldwin cameos would become an annoyance.
— Alec turned out to be only mildly funny in this overall meh monologue. Not even he can save this.
STARS: **
APOCALYPTO
subtitles in Apocalypto trailer show Mel Gibson’s influence on script
— The Lonely Island try their hand at something new, with an “An SNL movie trailer re-cut” segment. I remember thinking back when this originally aired that it was going to become a regular segment. Instead, we end up seeing only one more edition of this segment, and it’s not until THREE SEASONS LATER.
— A cheap and predictable joke, just using infamous anti-Semitic Mel Gibson quotes as subtitles for the Apocalypto trailer, but it’s coming off funny enough here. However, Lonely Island would later do a much better job in their second re-cut movie trailer: Palin 2012.
— The “I smell bagels” subtitle at the end was the funniest part.
STARS: ***
GOOD MORNING: I HATE THIS TOWN
presenters (JAS) & (host) abhor their city
— Meh, not caring for this premise.
— Yeah, two minutes into this, and this is mostly not working for me. What IS working for me is Jason’s solid and fun performance, which is singlehandedly almost completely saving this sketch’s very iffy concept.
STARS: **
TV FUNHOUSE
“Diddy Kiddies” by RBS- young detectives puzzle over what Sean Combs does
— A laugh from the title of this episode being “What Does Diddy Do?, Part 23”.
— A humorous detail with the endless number of singer names credited in two P. Diddy music videos including a few random non-singer celebrities like Dane Cook and Ken Griffey Jr.
— That almost sounds like Lorne doing the voice of the designer.
— Some laughs, but I’m not caring for the pacing of this. Too many dead spots for me, and the premise has gotten boring after a while.
STARS: **
STUDENT-TEACHER ROMANCE
high school teacher’s (host) romantic yen for student (ANS) is unrequited
— Am I watching a prototype of Pete Davidson’s Chad sketches? This sure feels like one. Not only is the premise of this sketch and the dynamic between the two main characters straight out of a Chad sketch, but some of the monotone, brain-dead, one-word sentences that Andy’s teen character responds to Annette’s long-winded dialogue with are “Okay”, which is Chad’s catchphrase. If you told me Andy and Annette have been performing a future Chad script obtained through the magic of time-travel, as crazy as that sounds, I’d probably believe you.
— Annette’s not even trying to make it appear she’s looking anywhere near Andy’s direction as she speaks to him, instead being glued to the cue cards. She’s also a bit stumbly with her lines. If this were pre-taped like the future Chad sketches, Annette would excel in this with her strong acting talent.
— Ugh, now this features Annette pointlessly breaking out into a mock-dramatic musical number. Make it stop!
— Weak ending.
— I’ve never been too big a fan of the Chad sketches (maybe I’ll come around on them when I eventually review them), but they’re so much better than THIS overall sketch. I didn’t find a single redeeming quality in this sketch.
STARS: *
TWO A-HOLES IN A LIVE NATIVITY SCENE
blase A-Holes unconvincingly portray Joseph & Mary in live nativity scene
— I like the reveal of the disjointed one-liners the Two A-Holes are each saying in their respective phone conversation turning out to be delivered to each other, even if I kinda saw it coming after a while.
— Good gag with Annette placing Kristen’s phone into Baby Jesus’ manger so the Two A-Holes will finally look in the correct direction.
— Speaking of people not looking in the correct direction, Annette continues to be glued to the cue cards tonight.
— A very funny line with Kristen telling Annette “You look like Mrs. Brady”. She does have the Carol Brady haircut.
— Solid ending with Jason yelling at the donkey (who he thinks are two little people in a costume) “IT WAS NICE WORKIN’ WITH YOU GUYS! YOU’RE GOOD DUDES!”
— Overall, a nice bounce back for these characters after the slightly-below-par previous installment from the John C. Reilly episode.
STARS: ****
ANGER PROBLEM
fast food manager (FRA) warns (Matthew Fox) & other employees
— This was cut after the preceding episode’s dress rehearsal, which explains why the hell Matthew Fox is randomly in this. I can’t help but imagine what the reaction would be from someone watching this who’s not aware that the preceding episode was hosted by Matthew Fox. I can just picture them wondering to themselves in confusion “Is that the dude from Lost standing in the background? Why in the world did SNL get him to randomly cameo in a small background role as one of the employees in this?” It’s like how I’ve always wondered if viewers who’ve watched Adam Sandler’s second and/or third Denise Show sketches without having seen the first one (where Shannen Doherty, who was hosting SNL that night, played the role of Denise) wondered to themselves why the hell SNL is randomly using a photo of the chick from 90210 for the otherwise-unseen title role of Denise.
— I’m loving Fred’s increasingly funny threats of “(insert number here) seconds, I’m (insert violent action here).” I particularly howled at him telling Amy “20 seconds, my ass…is in your mouth.”
— WTF? The Lost-esque head-explosion/mannequin ending completely…lost me (no lame pun intended), and ended this on a weak note.
— There surprisingly has yet to be a really strong Digital Short up to this point of the season that has knocked it out of the park. There’s also been a strange shortage of Digital Shorts this season so far, with this being only the third one.
STARS: ***½
BUYER BEWARE
paranoid consumer advocates (KET) & (MAR) see scams afoot
— Hmm, the voice Kenan’s using seems like it’ll get grating hearing it from a lead character in a sketch.
— Two mentions in separate sketches tonight of someone waiting in line for a Nintendo Wii.
— Maya’s character is making me laugh.
— Kenan, during a mailbag segment: “I have a letter here from myself……”
— Overall, not bad, despite the dull premise. Kenan’s character voice wasn’t as grating as I was worried it would eventually get, and he had some funny moments. Maya’s performance and one-liners also kept me amused.
— I remember when this originally aired and I didn’t like this sketch (I had an aversion to just about everything starring Kenan around this time, as I was of the opinion back then that he was the weak link of this cast), I was worried this was eventually going to become a recurring sketch, but we end up never seeing it return.
STARS: ***
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
Gwen Stefani performs “Wind It Up”
WEEKEND UPDATE
Al Gore (DAH) tells about his confusing conversation with Lindsay Lohan
flatulent (KRW) apologizes for stinking up an airplane & Weekend Update
photos of failed hetero unions don’t support WLF’s anti-gay marriage song
— Blah, where is this bit with Darrell-as-Al-Gore’s recounting of his conversation with Lindsay Lohan going?
— Overall, yeah, no real point to that Gore commentary.
— This seems like the type of subtle, awkward character Kristen can sell in spades, despite the dodgy fart-related premise.
— At least SNL refrained from using a fart sound effect when Kristen broke wind.
— The payoff of Kristen’s commentary didn’t work for me.
— Geez, Amy has some real groaners among her Update jokes tonight, even for her standards. Once again, I argue that little-to-nothing has changed with her on Update from the dreadful Fey/Poehler era. I’m still waiting for her to get decent as an anchorperson, and at this point, I’m sadly starting to think it’s never going to happen. I liked her as an anchorperson more when these Poehler/Meyers-era Updates originally aired than I do during my re-watches in this SNL project.
— Hell yeah, another Will Forte Update song!
— Some laughs from Will’s dumb anti-gay marriage preamble to his song.
— I absolutely love the melody of Will’s “Silly Silly Gays” song. Nice touch having Will’s song be assisted by a guitar-playing Fred (making his ONLY live appearance of the night, by the way, and he doesn’t even have any dialogue in it).
— Hilarious turn in Will’s commentary, with him unintentionally displaying photos of failed heterosexual celebrity marriages when trying to support his anti-gay marriage argument. I also love how his panicked reactions to those photos are still being sung in melody to his song.
— There seems to be a theme with lighters throughout tonight’s Update, as Kristen’s character lit a match to try to hide the scent of her fart, Amy used a lighter to light the cellphone she “smoked”, and now Seth is celebrating Will’s song by waving a lit lighter in the air ala a concertgoer.
STARS: **½
MONSTER UNDER THE BED
girl’s (AMP) monster-under-bed claim panics her parents (WLF) & (host)
— I love the turn with Amy’s character’s parents having an extremely paranoid reaction when Amy tells them she thinks a monster is under her bed. Will is particularly fantastic in his insane paranoia here.
— Will’s “friendly shark” analogy was hilarious.
— I love Annette shrieking “YOU IDIOT!” while strangling Amy after Amy reveals she brought chocolate into her room.
— The escalation to this sketch is great.
— Fun appearance from Bill as a jolly, singing monster. Bill is physically unrecognizable under that make-up (the exact same make-up that I believe has been used in various sketches in the past, including one with Will Ferrell as the devil trying to come up with love songs that Garth Brooks can use). You can only tell it’s Bill under that make-up by the voice.
STARS: ****½
VALTREX
Rerun from 11/11/06
AFTER WORK SNACK
Neil, Jean, fellow uptight co-worker Meryl (host) inch toward threesome
— Wow, the second half of this episode starting with Weekend Update has been huge for Will. Very welcome, given how limited his airtime had been lately due to him being busy filming the movie The Brothers Solomon.
— Good to see the return of this very solid, forgotten sketch from the preceding season’s Lindsay Lohan episode.
— Yet another sketch tonight where Annette is blatantly glued to the cue cards. Geez, it’s coming off particularly odd here, even if she is supposed to be playing a socially-awkward character.
— I love the little bit with Kristen taking her time pulling out a plastic bag of tipping change to give a tip to the waiter.
— Another great little Kristen moment, with her very funny line about once doing salsa dancing when under the influence of a very strong ringworm ointment.
— Annette isn’t blending in too well with Will and Kristen’s characterizations here, even if it’s the point that Annette’s character is more self-conscious than Will and Kristen’s characters. Lindsay Lohan did a much better job in her characterization in the first installment of this sketch. Who the hell could’ve ever guessed that a 19-year-old Lindsay Freakin’ Lohan would outdo Annette Bening in her portrayal of a subtle, quirky middle-aged character?
— So many funny little quirks from Will, Kristen, and Annette’s characters here. Too many for me to point out.
— This is using the same surprise twist from the first installment of this sketch, where we suddenly see Will’s character detailing the raunchy night of lovemaking he and his two co-workers have planned with each other, which isn’t a surprise anymore, but is still working for me, especially with the new aspect of constantly using the word “mess” in place of the f-word when talking about sex.
STARS: ****
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
Akon performs “I Wanna Love You”
STANFIELD & PARTLOW
lawyers (host) & (BIH) specialize in dowager-to-cat inheritance cases
— Annette botches a line right out of the gate in this.
— Bill’s first brief walk-on was very funny.
— The gag with the customer testimonial just being old black-and-white wacky stock footage of a cat playing ping-pong with a human seemed like it should’ve gotten a bigger laugh than it did.
— All of a sudden, this sketch awkwardly gets cut off mid-progress due to the show running long.
— Overall, not sure how to feel about this sketch as a whole, not just because we DIDN’T get to see the whole sketch, but because, while I liked some moments, some other moments kinda fell flat.
STARS: **½, I guess
GOODNIGHTS
IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS
— A middling episode. The strong Will Forte-dominated portion bolstered this episode’s quality, but the first half of this episode was, aside from the Two A-Holes sketch, completely unmemorable and contained some really mediocre pieces, and the episode ended on kind of a poor note with the aborted final sketch that wasn’t all that great to begin with. Another reason for me being left with an iffy feeling towards this episode was Annette Bening, who, despite some okay moments, was a much more mediocre host than I ever would’ve expected.
— Am I correct in remembering that this episode never got an NBC rerun? If I am, then I take it as a sign that the people at SNL weren’t too crazy about this episode either.
MY PERSONAL CHOICE OF “BEST OF” MOMENTS FOR THIS EPISODE, REPRESENTED WITH SCREENCAPS
HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Matthew Fox)
a step down
My full set of screencaps for this episode is here
TOMORROW
Justin Timberlake hosts the Christmas episode