Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars
BIDEN FIXES HEALTH CARE
Joe Biden (JAS) aims to solve health care reform while Obama is away
— Jason’s always-funny Joe Biden impression is one of the few people who I don’t mind seeing do a straight-to-camera address-to-the-nation cold opening. It’s sure as hell a lot more preferable to seeing one from Fred’s President Obama.
— Pretty funny how the only choices Jason’s Biden has on “easy” things to resolve are Afghanistan, the economy, and healthcare.
— Jason-as-Biden’s harsh “fat girl” analogy was very funny.
— A laugh from the “Stimulus is working” bit.
— A very odd and sloppy delivery of the word “hardliners” from Jason.
— I like Jason’s Biden following his statement, “Some of you out there are asking, ‘Joe, how are you going to pay for a $1.2 trillion plan by cutting taxes?’”, by pausing in a deadpan manner for a while and then moving on to the next topic, not even answering the question he just asked.
STARS: ***½
MONOLOGUE
Mad Men fans (JAS), (FRA), (BIH), (ABE) sing theme song to host
— Hoo, boy. January Jones’ stumbly delivery right out of the gate is already a worrisome sign of things to come.
— I like the idea of Mad Men fanatics being called Mad Mennies, ala Trekkies. Jason, Bill, and Fred are pretty fun in these roles.
— Fred’s “I like Peggy” line is obviously a wink-wink reference to Fred’s real-life then-relationship with Peggy’s actress, Elisabeth Moss. Unfortunately, this reference hasn’t aged well, given how badly Fred and Moss’ relationship would eventually sour.
— Seeing Abby as Mad Men’s Joan just makes me miss Casey Wilson, who previously played this role to perfection even in just a small appearance. This is one of way-too-many examples of Abby, Nasim, or Jenny taking over a role previously played by the recently-fired Casey Wilson or Michaela Watkins.
STARS: ***
TODAY
Kathie Lee Gifford’s (KRW) singing freaks out musical guest
— Geez, as soon as I complained about Casey and Michaela’s roles being replaced, we already get another example, with Jenny taking over Michaela’s Hoda Kotb impression. IIRC, SNL announced before the start of this season that Nasim would take over the Hoda impression (and she eventually would, but it wouldn’t happen until two seasons later, long after the firing of her castmate Jenny), so I’m not sure what made them change their mind between that announcement and tonight’s episode.
— As expected, Jenny seems kinda out of place in this role, and is lacking the certain understated spark and likable professionalism that Michaela brought to the role.
— Kristen-as-Kathie-Lee-Gifford’s detailing of her lovemaking routine with her husband is fairly funny.
— An often-mentioned bad gaffe as soon as the camera first shows January in this sketch: she, out of character, LITERALLY ASKS “Which camera???” in a whispery voice to someone off-camera in SNL’s studio, then pauses awkwardly when realizing the camera caught her asking that, then proceeds to deliver her scripted dialogue. My god.
— (*sigh*) And even after proceeding to deliver her scripted dialogue after the aforementioned gaffe, January’s delivery seems fairly halting.
— I’m kinda meh on this “Everyone Has A Story” segment.
— (*sigh*) And now January has begun tripping over her lines, much like at the beginning of the monologue.
— The bit with the Black Eyed Peas suddenly beating THE HELL out of Kristen’s Kathie Lee in the middle of her song had me howling with laughter back when this originally aired (probably because I couldn’t stand Kristen’s Kathie Lee impression back then, and thus, was delighted to see her get the beatdown I felt she deserved), but something about this beatdown sequence rubs me the wrong way nowadays. Reportedly, and unsurprisingly, it rubbed the real Kathie Lee the wrong way, too, as I recently learned that she complained about it shortly after the original airing of this episode.
STARS: **
REAR WINDOW
Grace Kelly’s (host) nonstop flatulence disrupts filming of Rear Window
— Pretty funny Alfred Hitchcock impression from Bobby, and I also like Jason’s Jimmy Stewart impression.
— Aaaaaaaand there goes all of my goodwill, as we get the first fart of this sketch. (*sigh*) This is going to be a looooooong sketch.
— Yeah, two-and-a-half-minutes into this, and I fucking hate this. Is SNL kidding me with this? SNL has actually done a few well-executed fart sketches in the past, but this sure as hell ain’t one of them.
— While not enough to come remotely close to salvaging this sketch, Jason’s delivery of “That’s because you’re sick, Grace! You’re sick!” amused me. It clearly amused January, too, as it makes her crack up out of character, which makes yet another gaffe from her tonight.
— What an awful, lazy ending.
STARS: *
WIIX NEWS
Michelle Dison clumsily woos Dairy Queen employee (host) during live shot
— Wow, a surprising return of a recurring sketch that hasn’t appeared since way back in season 32. What inspired them to bring this sketch out of the mothballs this week? The fact that they had such a weak host?
— This is going the EXACT SAME route as the previous two installments of this sketch. Even though Kristen is still selling this well and is getting some laughs from me, this sketch feels a little too old hat, even after its three-season absence.
— Very solid straight man performance from Jason in the news studio, and I’m liking the cutaways to his dumbfounded, silent facial reactions. January’s straight man performance, on the other hand, is as bland as bland can be.
— Kristen’s Michelle Dison to January: “You look like a mannequin.” A perfect unintentional description of both January’s performances in tonight’s sketches in general and her demeanor in this particular sketch.
— Pretty funny ending with Michelle Dison accidentally removing her shirt and revealing her bra on live TV in an attempt to get bees away from her.
STARS: **½
A LADY’S GUIDE TO THROWING A PARTY
archaic mores in 1952 how-to
— Clearly, this must be an intentional companion piece to the “Don Draper’s Guide To Picking Up Women” short from the preceding season’s episode hosted by January’s Mad Men co-star Jon Hamm.
— Terrific old-timey visual quality of this short, making this look EXACTLY like an authentic 1950s/1960s instructional film.
— (*groan*) Fred making a walk-on in his typical gay stereotype role, I see.
— I love the part with January telling us “If a black person arrives…just kidding.” For the first (and, IIRC, only) time all night, January is clearly in her element in this pre-taped period piece.
— Good ending regarding what women should do if they have to relieve themselves.
— Very strong piece overall, and the first thing all night that feels like it’s worth really bragging about.
STARS: ****½
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “I Gotta Feeling”
WEEKEND UPDATE
Lou Dobbs (DAH) is leaving CNN so he can sustain his paranoid xenophobia
NBC series pairing Bernie Madoff & Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is punishment
Kim Kardashian (NAP) loves her butt more than sister Khloe & Reggie Bush
Jon Bovi’s lyrical inversion requires the use of questionable opposites
— Darrell Hammond in yet another season 35 cameo.
— Some good oh-so-wrong laughs from Darrell-as-Lou-Dobbs’ racist, un-PC comments about the Latin takeover of the news.
— Something about Darrell’s delivery of “He’s got that…Latin…tiiiinge” had me laughing out loud.
— An interesting Bernie & The Shiekh opening title sequence with a Kenan-sung theme song. I’m also always a sucker for what I call the “Jeffersons font” (the font used in the opening and closing credits of the sitcom The Jeffersons) that they’re using for the captioned lyrics on the bottom of the screen.
— The aforementioned Kenan-sung Bernie & The Shiekh theme song is surprisingly the closest to an involvement Kenan has in this entire episode. He’s nowhere to be seen ANYWHERE in this episode. Given this episode’s negative reputation, perhaps Kenan should consider himself lucky he was shut out of this episode.
— The debut of Nasim’s Kim Kardashian impression.
— Odd voice Nasim is using for Kim, but it and her portrayal in general are making me laugh.
— Always a treat to see Jon Bovi.
— This sadly feels like the first big role Will has gotten in quite a while, showing how much his airtime has been reduced this season.
— Jon Bovi begin this commentary by singing the exact same “Good Medicine” song they sang in their last appearance prior to this. In my review of that last appearance, I said that “Good Medicine” song has stuck in my memory over the years. After now seeing that they reused the song in tonight’s commentary, I understand why that song stuck in my memory over the years.
— Hilarious comment from Jason saying his mustache isn’t on his face. Speaking of which, has anybody else ever noticed that, in Jon Bovi’s very first appearance (in a sketch from the season 32 Jaime Pressly episode), Jason’s character actually had a facial mustache (screencap below), but he doesn’t have it in any of the other Jon Bovi appearances?
— A very funny opposite version of the song “Single Ladies” from Jon Bovi.
— Hmm. Some portions of tonight’s Jon Bovi commentary don’t feel as strong as usual, but I’m still enjoying it. I hope these characters aren’t slowly starting to run out of steam, as much as I love them.
— Wait, I just now checked SNL Archives, and this actually ends up being Jon Bovi’s final SNL appearance! Wow. (Then again, I forgot this is Will’s final season.) At least they got out at the right time, before they got too stale.
— I like how Seth, when signing off after Jon Bovi’s commentary, copies Jon Bovi’s “opposite” routine by ending his sign-off with “Good morning!” instead of “Good night!”
STARS: ***
SCIENTIFIC SYMPOSIUM
Dr. Jekyll (BIH) claims Mr. Hyde is to blame for his homosexual episodes
— Bill is always perfect in these old-timey black-and-white sketches.
— (*groan*) OH FUCKING NO. The big reveal of this sketch’s conceit is that…it’s a gay-themed Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde take-off, with Jekyll claiming his Mr. Hyde personality is who he does “gay stuff” as??? Are you fucking kiddi–….. (*sigh*) Between the fart-filled Rear Window sketch and now this, I swear tonight’s episode must be relying on old, unused scripts from the dreary season 30. These Rear Window and Jekyll/Hyde sketches have the exact same sophomoric hyperfocus on horribly-written hacky bathroom and gay-stereotype humor that dominated season 30. This Jekyll/Hyde sketch in particular, had it aired in season 30, would’ve been considered a companion piece to that dreadful Mrs. Dr. Frankenstein sketch from that season’s Kate Winslet episode.
— Aaaaaaaand this sketch somehow gets fucking WORSE, as we now have Fred making his second typical gay stereotype walk-on in tonight’s episode ALONE. I…I have no words.
— Now Bill’s Jekyll is going on and on about the homoerotic-sounding “Fire Island” that he frequents. Ohhh, the end of this hacky-ass sketch cannot come soon enough. This is AWFUL.
STARS: *
GET OUT
(FRA) can’t avoid encountering (ANS) sitting on the toilet
— After getting two season 30-esque juvenile sketches tonight, now we get a toilet short…
— Fred walking in on a toilet-sitting Andy in increasingly out-of-place locations is making me laugh. However, something feels kinda throwaway about this Digital Short compared to most of Lonely Island’s SNL output. This is still certainly better than some of the utter trash that has aired in tonight’s episode, though.
— A very dumb ending, but I chuckled. However, I remember an online SNL fan back at this time in 2009 pointing out that a bottomless Fred sitting on Andy’s naked lap furthers the juvenile, cheap homoerotic vibe of tonight’s episode. Good point.
STARS: ***
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Meet Me Halfway”
CLOUD GAZING
(host)’s lack of imagination hampers cloud-watching date with (JAS)
— Hmm, interesting setting of this, and the overhead camera angle used for this entire sketch feels very unique for SNL.
— Very big night for Jason, appearing in a majority of the sketches and doing a lot of the heavy lifting in them.
— What’s that off-camera mumbling I’m hearing early on in this sketch? Are those SNL stagehands speaking in the studio? Do they not realize we can hear them?
— Yikes, January’s half-inaudible delivery of her intentionally-corny “Wiz” joke was TERRIBLE, and caused it to bomb with the audience.
— Meh, a lazy premise (in an episode filled with lazy premises) of January playing a dumb bimbo.
— Jason is giving yet another great straight man performance, and is really helping this sketch’s quality. I especially like how, after one dumb statement of January’s, Jason looks around and asks “Am I on Punk’d or something?”
— January actually has some decently funny lines, but her delivery, in terms of quality, keeps coming and going all throughout, and never reaching the solidness it needs to put this sketch over.
STARS: **½
GOODNIGHTS
musical guest performs “Boom Boom Pow”
— So are we just handing out special goodnights musical performances to EVERY musical guest by this point? It doesn’t feel right to me that the Black Eyed Peas get this honor. Perhaps this is a sign of how poorly written and underwritten tonight’s episode is, that SNL possibly had to rely on the Black Eyed Peas to fill up time at the end of the show.
IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS
— A weak episode that, while not quite as horrible as its reputation, still sucked. (Also known as “The Nancy Kerrigan Episode Syndrome”.) A lot of this episode had an off feel, furthered by January Jones giving such a lousy and sloppy hosting performance. There was also a lazy feel to a lot of this episode, especially with 1) the unnecessary random rehashing of the Michelle Dison sketches from three seasons prior, and 2) the regression with SNL relying on season 30-esque bathroom/gay-stereotype humor. Only one segment in this entire episode stood out as strong (A Lady’s Guide To Throwing A Party). The fact that NBC would end up never rerunning this episode shows that even SNL themselves are of the common opinion that this episode is a flop.
MY PERSONAL CHOICE OF “BEST OF” MOMENTS FOR THIS EPISODE, REPRESENTED WITH SCREENCAPS
RATED SEGMENTS RANKED FROM BEST TO WORST
A Lady’s Guide To Throwing A Party
Biden Fixes Health Care
Weekend Update
Get Out
Monologue
Cloud Gazing
WIIX News
Today
Rear Window
Scientific Symposium
HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Taylor Swift)
a big step down
My full set of screencaps for this episode is here
TOMORROW
Joseph Gordon-Levitt