Tag: Sam Smith

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October 7, 2017 – Gal Gadot / Sam Smith (S43 E2)

Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars

“I WON’T BACK DOWN”
Jason Aldean [real] marks Las Vegas shootings with “I Won’t Back Down”

— Another nice tribute from SNL after a mass shooting. Boy, were the 2010s a horrible decade in terms of shooting tragedies.
— A rare instance (especially in recent eras) of a cold opening being a full-fledged performance from a musical artist.
STARS: N/A (not a ratable segment)


MONOLOGUE
Times Square Wonder Woman (LEJ) compares herself to host’s version

— I didn’t even notice Gal Gadot’s accent here until she pointed it out.
— Leslie’s her usual funny and charming self as the Times Square Wonder Woman, and she has some pretty funny comparisons between herself and Gal’s Wonder Woman.
STARS: ***


E! NEW FALL LINEUP
E! offers brainless entertainment with Kendall Jenner (host) & others

— Pretty amusing how Gal’s playing two different roles in the same scene.
— A pretty good laugh from Gal’s Kendall Jenner using Alexa to find out her own identity.
— After sadly being shut out of his first episode the preceding week, Luke Null finally makes his very first appearance, and it’s not even live. His natural likability is still shining through in this role, though.
— A decent spoof of E! programming. The “Where’s Kanye” portion is standing out the most.
STARS: ***


FIRST DATE
no-longer-imprisoned O.J. Simpson (KET) has a dinner date with (host)

— A priceless reveal of Kenan playing a fresh-out-of-prison O.J. Simpson.
— Much like in his first episode, Chris Redd has the ability to get a big laugh out of me in just a small role.
— A lot of laughs from Kenan’s O.J. taking advantage of the fact that Gal doesn’t know who he is.
— Lots of other hilarious bits throughout this sketch, such as the reveal of Kenan’s O.J. having been given a plastic knife “for some reason”, Kenan’s O.J. expressing his anger over not being able to get back his trophies, and the reveal of a whole bunch of other restaurant patrons filming Kenan’s O.J. on their phones.
— Love the ending with Kenan’s O.J. saying “Still got it” into the camera.
STARS: ****½


THE CHOSEN ONE
fantasy world barely holds attention of pool boy Chad

— SNL continues to place Chad in good new settings in each short he appears in. I also like how this particular setting offers a change of pace from the previous Chad shorts’ premise of someone being in love with Chad.
— A particularly funny part where, after Cecily tells Chad she’ll gift him with her virginity, Chad responds “Dope!” and IMMEDIATELY drops his pants.
STARS: ***½


MIRAGE
mirage of (host) & Jamba Juice appears to (KET) & (BEB) in the desert

 

— Kenan in his old “Kenan & Kel”-era hairstyle, I see. He also used to wear a similar wig quite a bit way back in his earlier seasons on SNL, such as in the Good Morning Meth sketch from season 31.

— Another funny scene-stealing appearance from Leslie.
— All of the contrasts between the Gal mirages and the Kyle/Mikey mirages are pretty funny.
STARS: ***½


SAFELITE AUTOGLASS
Safelite AutoGlass worker (BEB) breaks windshields to be near teen (MEV)

— Oh, here’s a notorious piece. This would end up receiving complaints from Safelite due to the controversial content, resulting in SNL removing this commercial from both online (I think) and televised reruns. In the televised reruns, this Safelite commercial would be replaced with a cut-after-dress Beck/Kyle pre-tape.
— I think I recall that, during the aforementioned controversy over this commercial, it was even revealed that SNL modeled Beck’s character after a real-life Safelite worker seen in commercials, which would explain why Beck was given such a specific look for this.
— Beck is good in his performance as this creep, but I’m not finding this commercial all that great. I’m not HATING it, but there have been other times where SNL has done a better job of pulling off this kind of risky humor.
STARS: **


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Too Good At Goodbyes”


WEEKEND UPDATE
Ruth Bader Ginsburg (KAM) burns her fellow Supreme Court justices

PED’s mental health would improve if more of his material made it on SNL

— Much like in the Weekend Update from the season 41 Amy Schumer episode, Colin and Michael are getting funny points out of the touchy subject of gun control.
— As much as I don’t like the always-tiresome “Ginsburned” dance breaks in Kate’s RBG commentaries, there’s a pretty funny gaffe & ensuing ad-libbing in regards to Kate’s glasses accidentally flying off during one of her dance breaks.
— Tonight’s overall RBG commentary mostly got only mild laughs from me, but there were some good lines towards the end.
— Oh, this is shortly after Pete was diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder.
— A lot of laughs from the concept of Pete trying to guilt SNL into helping his depression by doing more of his sketches.
— Pete, on why he doesn’t write sketches more often: “My sketches SUCK, because they’re all written by a depressed person. (pause) Lorne said that!”
— One of the requests in the note from Pete’s “doctor:” “Use more of [Pete’s] rap videos.” Looks like SNL would eventually fulfill that request, starting the following season, I believe.
— Pete, at the very end of his commentary while the audience is applauding: “How have I not been fired?!?”
STARS: ****


THE MAIDEN AND THE MICE
ballgown made from detritus by fairy tale mice doesn’t wow maiden (host)

— The mere sketch concept of a storybook character speaking to three magically-appearing tiny characters initially has me a little worried, thanks to those awful Kinky Elves sketches that I had to suffer through the last few seasons prior to this, but this sketch seems to be going its own route, thankfully.
— A pretty funny line from Aidy responding to Gal pointing out the shoddiness of the dress with “Well…yeah. We’re workin’ on a budget of zero dollars.”
— Another good line, from Kate saying “We only live for a year. We basically gave you our 20s.”
— Didn’t care much for the ending, and Beck’s role reminded me a little too much of his role in that The Princess And The Curse pre-tape from the preceding season’s Felicity Jones episode.
STARS: ***


ESPIONAGE
sexy webcam show of (CES) & (AIB) interferes with online ransom drop

— Live Luke! It’s about time. Unfortunately, Luke’s live role here is just a minor, non-comedic one.
— The various “sexy” actions that Cecily and Aidy are performing on their webcam are pretty funny.
— Good bit at the end with the 40 million dollars that Alex sends ending up unintentionally going to Cecily & Aidy instead of Gal.
STARS: ***


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Pray”


THEMYSCIRA
lesbians (AIB) & (KAM) are disappointed Diana (host) & Amazons aren’t gay

— Kate and Aidy are pretty funny in their constant frustration over the unintentionally homoerotic actions being performed by the non-lesbian Amazons. I especially like Aidy’s line, “It’s like we’re in a porn, but the plumber is just genuinely there to fix the pipes.”
— Gal: “Lay your head…on my tits.” Heh, that line came out of nowhere. I also think I recall hearing that the word “tits” in that line would later be bleeped-out (or muted-out) in a rebroadcast later that same night. If that’s true, that makes me wonder if Gal ad-libbed the usage of that word. Aidy did noticeably break out into what appeared to be a genuine giggle after Gal said it (while Kate, on the other hand, remained completely straight-faced and unfazed).
STARS: ***


THE NAOMI SHOW
(KET) becomes terrible teen’s (HEG) father figure

— Heidi gets her very first big role.
— A funny entrance from Heidi, bragging about her straws.
— Kenan’s getting laughs from me in his angry spiel as the sargent.
— The turn with Kenan becoming Heidi’s dad is a bit odd, and isn’t doing all that much for me. It’s certainly not awful, but I’m a little meh on it.
— I do like Kenan’s character admitting that he’s just an actor who previously appeared on Moesha.
STARS: **½


GOODNIGHTS

IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS
— A very average episode. Certainly not bad, and, much like what I said in my review of the preceding episode, makes me puzzled over why the first three episodes of this season gave me such a bad omen of a big decline for this SNL era back when those three episodes originally aired, but I feel like this episode rarely rose above “pretty funny” (I found myself saying “pretty funny” waaaay too much in this review).


MY PERSONAL CHOICE OF “BEST OF” MOMENTS FOR THIS EPISODE, REPRESENTED WITH SCREENCAPS


RATED SEGMENTS RANKED FROM BEST TO WORST
First Date
Weekend Update
Mirage
The Chosen One
Themyscira
Espionage
E! New Fall Lineup
Monologue
The Maiden and The Mice
The Naomi Show
Safelite AutoGlass


HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Ryan Gosling)
a mild step down


My full set of screencaps for this episode is here


TOMORROW
Kumail Nanjiani

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March 29, 2014 – Louis C.K. / Sam Smith (S39 E16)

Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars

HEALTHCARE.GOV MEETING
Barack Obama (JAP) seeks social media virality to promote HealthCare.gov

— Yikes. The (very pointless) audience applause that usually occurs whenever someone starts speaking at the beginning of cold openings of recent years seemed to be completely miscued on a timing delay tonight, leading Jay to awkwardly pause for a few seconds while waiting for the obligatory applause, then when we finally do get the applause, only about 20% of the audience do it, which then leads Jay and Taran to awkwardly break out into a giggle, then pause a little longer before finally going on with the script. Oof. All of this just shows how pointless and annoying it is for SNL to have the audience applaud at the beginning of every cold opening. For the life of me, I will NEVER understand why SNL made that a requirement.
— Even though she’s just playing a normal character, Noel is reminding me of Zooey Deschanel here, probably partly because of the hairstyle.
— Even with no lines, Brooks is doing very funny physical acting as Harry Styles.
— Funny delivery from Kyle as the pope.
— Some amusing sob stories from Taran, especially the heart-literally-made-of-gold one.
— Ah, the return of Kate’s hilarious Justin Bieber impression that debuted earlier this season.
STARS: ***½


MONOLOGUE
host does stand-up about existence of God & existence of God’s wife

— Didn’t care for that “white noise is noise for white people” opening joke, which was surprisingly hacky for a Louis C.K. joke. Thankfully, he just treated it as a quick throwaway joke and immediately moved on to another topic.
— I love the “I’m, like, literally starving” voice Louis does.
— A very solid bit about men being worse than women, especially Louis analyzing the “She got her feelings hurt” comment that he quotes from someone.
— I like Louis getting further mileage out of the ditzy, lispy voice that he used earlier during the “starving” bit by now using it as an example of how he can’t do impressions.
— I wonder if that’s a real audience member who, while off-camera, answers some of Louis’ questions in a short back-and-forth exchange Louis is having with her. When the camera finally does briefly cut to that audience member (after she’s already finished speaking), there’s no lighting on the portion of the audience we see (the second above screencap for this monologue), which I kinda like, as it gives this audience interaction of Louis’ a raw, genuine feel, like something you’d see in one of his stand-up specials.
— This God/heaven material is fantastic, and feels a little in a George Carlin vein, which I love.
— Yet another very strong bit, this time with Louis questioning the logic behind giving the name “wifebeater” to a certain type of shirt.
STARS: *****


BLACK JEOPARDY!
white contestant (host) questions tenor of game show

— The debut of this well-liked recurring sketch.
— I love Kenan smugly introducing himself as “Alex Tre-BLACK!”, then lightheartedly laughing and saying “Nah, I’m just playin’. I’m Darnell Hayes.”
— Solid black-centric humor here. While the humor feels very stereotypical, it’s working here, especially with how it and Louis’ whitebred answers comically contrast with each other. Plus, the fact that a black person (Michael Che) co-wrote this sketch helps the stereotypical aspect of the humor come off more acceptable.
— A huge laugh from Michael Vick being Louis’ answer to the dogs question. Even funnier that the actual answer turns out to be Sarah McLachlan.
— When Louis’ answer to the question from the “White People” category is revealed to be correct, Kenan gets a great line towards Louis: “The truth is, we would’ve accepted ANY answer.”
— Solid ending.
— While this overall Black Jeopardy debut doesn’t measure up to some of the later installments (particularly the well-loved installments with Tom Hanks and Chadwick Boseman), this was still strong.
STARS: ****


BABY BOSS
Mr. Patterson’s employee (host) spoon-feeds his resignation to his boss

— Beck is still great at this body-of-a-baby routine, as well as his ability to seamlessly go back-and-forth from doing wild baby mannerisms to acting like a straitlaced, mature boss, but they didn’t have to put this character in the exact same office setting that he previously appeared in in his debut. This seems like a character that would be better off having a different occupation in each installment. Lots of comedic potential there.
— Great bit with spit-up coming out of Beck’s mouth after Aidy compliments him on being a handsome man.
— Love the part with Louis and Beck demonstrating their old fraternity handshake.
— Despite my gripes towards SNL reusing the office setting from the first installment of this sketch, this follow-up installment is still turning out very funny, and they’re managing to make this routine still come off fresh.
STARS: ****


JOS. A. BANK
disposable Jos. A. Bank clothing is suitable to replace paper towels

— A very funny random use of Jos A. Bank suits.
— I particularly love the suit dispenser that Vanessa demonstrates.
— Vanessa is absolutely perfect as the spokesperson.
STARS: ****


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Stay With Me”


WEEKEND UPDATE
Stephen A. Smith (JAP) is a close friend of March Madness principals

— (*groan*) Another one of Jay’s one-note Stephen A. Smith commentaries. I’m so tired of this routine, which wasn’t funny the first time.
— Even the audience is barely laughing at Jay-as-Smith’s angry rants tonight.
— Oof, Cecily has some really corny jokes tonight. Some absolute groaners, almost comparable to ones that Charles Rocket and Gail Matthius regularly received in the dire Weekend Updates from season 6. Not helping the horrid jokes that Cecily’s been stuck with tonight is her forced and hammy delivery of them (as seen in the first and fourth above screencaps for this Update). Colin is actually faring much better than Cecily tonight, despite still being a pale shadow of his future, more-developed Update persona.
— That’s it? That’s the whole Update? Wow, an unusually short Update. Sure could’ve used an actual good guest commentary to give this very weak Update a much-needed boost. Some of Colin’s jokes were the ONLY thing keeping this Update from receiving the lowest rating I gave to an Update since the dreadful Fey/Poehler era of this segment.
STARS: **


MR. BIG STUFF
passerby (host) rejects women’s musical appellation of “Mr. Big Stuff”

— An interesting and entertaining format to this.
— Throughout the song, I’m really liking Louis’ detailed objections to being called “Mr. Big Stuff”. And after the song stops, I especially love his big monologue about his unappealing personal qualities.
STARS: ****


DOCTOR’S OFFICE
doctor (MOB) verifies that butts don’t contain Darth Vader action figures

— Good execution of a juvenile premise.
— Speaking of sketches with a well-executed juvenile premise, Kenan is playing the same janitor character that he played two episodes prior in the Elevator sketch from the Jim Parsons episode, at least according to SNL Archives (seen here), presumably because both sketches feature Kenan wearing the exact same janitor uniform with the “Reggie” nametag (side-by-side comparison a little below), which is probably just an example of SNL cutting corners by reusing the same costume rather than the writers intending for Kenan’s janitor character in both sketches to be the same person.

— Funny visual of Kenan mopping carpet.
— Mike is a solid straight man here, further proving how much more in-his-element he is in short films than in live sketches (the latter of which he does not appear in tonight).
STARS: ***½


PRIVATE EYES
detective (host) & partner (VAB) gaily negotiate pajama-clad sex

— When the loud background music first kicked in during the middle of a conversation Vanessa and Louis are having, I worriedly thought for a second that we were getting ANOTHER musical sketch tonight, which I certainly didn’t need a second helping of (as much as I liked the Mr. Big Stuff sketch). Thankfully, it turns out that the background music in this sketch didn’t lead to singing.
— A very strange concept and approach to this sketch. I am liking Louis’ intentionally stilted delivery of his lines, just because it’s Louis, of all people, delivering it.
— As this sketch progresses, the very odd dialogue and approach is really growing on me. And in addition to the funny novelty of seeing Louis, of all people, delivering lines like this, this sketch is also helped by Vanessa’s charming and solid performance.
— Bobby’s (who’s surprisingly making his first appearance all night here) brief scene adds to the intentional weirdness and stilted-ness of this sketch.
— Speaking of weirdness, we get a noteworthy unscripted bit at the end, where, after reading the strange-sounding line “I love you, no” off the cue card, Louis openly drops character and asks an amused “What?!?” in response to the oddness of the line he just read. I have absolutely no idea what in the world that was all about (did he misread “I love you, no” off the cue card, or did they put “I love you, no” on the cue card at the last minute to intentionally throw Louis off, because they knew it would get a funny reaction from him?), but it was certainly amusing.
STARS: ***


DYKE & FATS
Chicago policewomen Dyke (KAM) & Fats (AIB) embrace their salient traits

 

— A famous and highly-regarded piece.
— Hilarious reveal of the Dyke & Fats title, as well as the full names of the Dyke & Fats characters: Les Dykawitz and Chubbina Fatzarelli.
— A very fun and amusing opening credits sequence. This mid-2010s SNL era seems to be really good at recreating the look and spirit of the opening credits of 1970s/80s cop shows (one of my favorite TV genres), as the following season has that great “Blazer” pre-tape (where Taran plays a rogue cop who always goes out of his way to only punch black people).
— An actual very funny and well-done approach to spoofing lesbian and overweight stereotypes, and this is definitely one of SNL’s best uses of Kate and Aidy’s chemistry.
— Excellent twist with the negative, offended reaction Dyke & Fats have to Louis referring to them by their nicknames, and how that abruptly turns out to be the end of this sketch. And the “Created by Kate McKinnon & Aidy Bryant” closing credit, as well as the fact that this Dyke & Fats episode itself turns out to be far shorter than its lengthy opening credits sequence, gives this an Astronaut Jones feel.
STARS: *****


MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Lay Me Down”


CHRIS FITZPATRICK FOR ASB PRESIDENT
Chris Fitzpatrick (KYM) presents his high school class president platform

— Another trunk piece that Kyle has brought to SNL from his YouTube days.
— This perfectly captures the spirit of “edgy” teens, in that always-funny, intentionally stilted, low-budget Kyle Mooney way.
— I love the use of disturbing stock footage during the scene transitions. There’s an especially funny detail of one of the car crash clips having a GettyImages watermark.
— Lots of funny personal qualities that Kyle’s Chris Fitzpatrick is disclosing about himself.
STARS: ****


ROMANTIC SPEECH
crazy talk pervades (host)’s reconciliation with ex-girlfriend (AIB)

— Louis’ extremely random, insane non-sequitur lines to Aidy are cracking me up. I’m enjoying the absurdist approach to this sketch.
— One part I’m “meh” about is the running bit with Louis pronouncing “man” as “mang”, as it’s not making me laugh anywhere near as much as the rest of his oddball lines.
STARS: ***½


GOODNIGHTS

— A particularly generous and very sweet goodnights speech from Louis, even namedropping Phil Hymes (SNL’s lighting director for many years) at one point when complimenting Hymes’ great work on the lighting of the studio.

IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS
— Easily the best episode since the first third of this season. SNL is now 2-for-2 in damn strong Louis C.K.-hosted episodes. Two solid hosting stints in, and Louis is becoming more and more comfortable AND comforting as a host, and I always find it fun on SNL to see him occasionally attempt something way out of his element, such as the Private Eyes sketch tonight and that Polish immigrant play from his later 2017 episode. It’ll be interesting to see if the streak of Louis C.K.-hosted episodes being strong continues after this. I recall loving his aforementioned 2017 episode, but I’m kinda having a hard time remembering half of the stuff from his 2015 episode off the top of my head.


MY PERSONAL CHOICE OF “BEST OF” MOMENTS FOR THIS EPISODE, REPRESENTED WITH SCREENCAPS


RATED SEGMENTS RANKED FROM BEST TO WORST
Dyke & Fats
Monologue
Jos. A. Bank
Black Jeopardy!
Mr. Big Stuff / Chris Fitzpatrick For ASB President (tie)
Baby Boss
Romantic Speech
Doctor’s Office
HealthCare.gov Meeting
Private Eyes
Weekend Update


HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Lena Dunham)
a big step up


My full set of screencaps for this episode is here


TOMORROW
Anna Kendrick