It was a mostly a game of “Remember This Sketch?” this week on Saturday Night Live.
Law made the most of his Broadway run in Hamlet. His opening monologue consisted of a tedious summary of the play. But a later sketch was better: He was made to audition for the role, with competing actors including Bill Hader’s fine Al Pacino, Bobby Moynihan’s Nathan Lane, and — best of all — Jason Sudeikis as a gnomically wise Sam Elliott.
Because the show acts as though its audience wouldn’t be familiar with any current event except perhaps who got kicked off American Idol this week, the cold-open featured a voiceover summary of the Eric Massa scandal, and then followed it with an exceedingly unfunny “exit interview” with Massa (Bobby Moynihan) conducted by Kristen Wiig. The recurring punchline here was that gay sex is inherently hilarious.
Later, during “Weekend Update,” surprise guest Jerry Seinfeld took Amy Poehler’s old spot in a “Really!?!” segment… about Eric Massa. Jerry got off a “massa-bate” joke.”
The night’s first sketch was “Secret Word,” a Password parody SNL has done before… which means we knew that we’d have to watch Kristen Wiig as flamboyant, stupid actress Mindy Grayson, who (this was the bit’s sole joke) always says the “secret word” instead of giving her partner clues to guess at it. Absolutely suffocating, and I even watch Password reruns occasionally:
Much later, there was another character we’ve seen before: Fred Armisen as the addled court stenographer who says, “I can’t find my Chapstick” over and over. That one was pretty airless, too.
After a number of weeks with relatively few fake commercials, this week had three. The best one was a rerun, though, “Kickspit Underground Rock Festival” TV ad, promoting metal bands like Donkey Crust and Gunt, and cool giveaways: “Everyone gets a pitchfork!” Runner-up, however, was one for something called “Broadview Security,” that cleverly exaggerated home-alone fears and carried them into absurdity:
Andy Samberg’s “Digital Short” was a song about him hoisting a boom-box in various settings (a New York street; a retirement home), with dancing and wild behavior ensuing. But not many laughs. It was well-made, with Julian Casablancas singing, but the mini-film didn’t add much to the music-comedy formula Samberg has done so well in the past.
Law made the most of a scene in which he played a seductive Spanish man trying to seduce two American women (Abby Elliott and Nasim Pedrad). The plot was lifted from a Woody Allen movie with a bit of Law’s Talented Mr. Ripley menace thrown in, awkwardly.
There was a parody of “Nightmare at 20,000 Feet,” the 1961 Twilight Zone episode that starred William Shatner as an airline passenger who sees a gremlin on the wing of the plane. Law played the passenger (excellent, though he didn’t do a Shatner impersonation) and Moynihan was the gremlin. It was very old-school SNL — you could almost imagine John Belushi as the gremlin, and almost sweet in its commitment to black-and-white-TV-show conventions.
As for Pearl Jam: Eddie Vedder sounded terrific twice, on both the ballad and the rocker. The band also made a cameo in the Twilight Zone sketch that almost lifted the bit into hilarity. Well done, gentlemen.
Overall, there was an air of exhausted inspiration this week, as though the writers and performers were looking forward to a few weeks off. Which is what they’re going to get. (The show will be back Apr. 10 with Tina Fey as host.) Jude Law was certainly charming and game, his accents (Russian, Spanish) spot-on, but there wasn’t much for him to work with.
Agree? Disagree?
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Just a theory…but I think the head writer and maybe some or all of the writing staff know they are fired, or will be.
So we get mostly the same old crap from these guys, warmed over.
It’s been a disappointing season considering how funny this show became the last few years.
Isn’t the head writer Seth? If it is, I’m torn over your comment, agreeing witht he sentiment, but thinking, “But it’s Seth!” Indeed, except for last week’s Zach Gali-somethingsomethin-kis episode, and the Jon Hamm and Michael Buble sketch, “Hamm and Buble”, this season’s been quite a downer.
SOMETHING needs to happen. Ever episode is either the same re-heated “skitches” or just another lame attempt at a new one that has one joke that repeats over and over and over and over and over again.
The Twilight Zone scene was the only one worth giving a damn about… and I am a huge Jude Law fan.
I think SNL needs to bring in not new talent, but a few experienced actors who have some actual depth. I get less entertained by this group every week. Not a one of them will be remembered in the SNL classic lexicon years for now.
I AM SICK of Kirsten Wiig. Aside from her and that lame courtroom skit, I thought it was a relatively good episode. In fact it was one of the better episodes of the season. Two of the worst have to be the Taylo Swift and January Jones episodes. I’ll say this – the writers seem capable of only writing the same Kirsten Wiig skits over and over – she was funny at first, but now is just annoying.
I just don’t understand why SNL can’t find funny writers. There are so many brilliant comedies on TV, so it’s not like there is a dearth of funny writers. While I don’t think that there’s a writer on the planet that could make Keenan funny, there are some good players on the cast that would benefit from better material. This show hasn’t been funny for years(Tina Fey was brilliant last year but the material, funnily enough, came from Palin herself, not the writers.) What the frak is going on?
It isn’t the writing staff, it’s Lorne Michaels. These people come up, doing amazing work at Groundlings, or 2nd City or UCB and get a coveted spot on the SNL writing staff only to find they can”t anything on air except another lame Darien Cole (sp?) or ESPN sketch. Because of the old guy who’s been running the show for 30+ years and is perfectly content to keep the show mediocre.
It will never change.
a lot of the bad comedy and sketches has to be attributed to the host too. the show soars when it has the perfect host who is game for anything and has good comic timing- for example, jon hamm, paul rudd, and anna faris.
I don’t know about the writing staff getting fired…they just won the Writers Guild Award (a tie w/ The Daily Show). I don’t think they deserved it but that acknowledgement may go a long way since their head writer is still the same: Seth Myers and seems to have the support of Lorne Michaels.
I agree with you that the material is blah and they only rise to the occasion with their hosts once in a while.
I agree with bri. I think old man Lorne is holding the show down. The recycled skits just get worse and worse.
Totally agree. This cast is GREAT–even the new females that were rarely shown until the last few episodes.
The problem here is the writing, plain and simple.
FUNNY, I GOT UP THIS MORNING RETHINKING WHAT I DID LAST NIGHT BEFORE I WENT TO BED, AND THEN REALIZED I HAD WATCHED SNL, BUT DIDN’T REALLY REMEMBER HOW BAD IT WAS TILL I SAW THIS ARTICLE. IT’S BEEN PAINFUL THIS SEASON. THE SHOW IS ON BY ROTE N MY HOUSE, BUT ITS BEEN A LONG TIME SINCE I FELL OFF THE COUCH LAUGHING, A REALLY LONG TIME. AT LEAST WE DIDN’T SEE THE KRISTIN WIIG SHOW LAST NIGHT. THEY NEED NEW TALENT AND NEW WRITERS.
You know, you can press shift to capitalize letters INSTEAD OF WRITING THE WHOLE THING IN CAPS. CAPS SHOULD ONLY BE USED FOR EMPHASIS, AND NOT FOR EVERY WORD YOU TYPE.
Seriously? Why do you care how he types? Its a free internet, people can type how they like.
The internet may not be free for long.
Especially if it becomes a primary source for quality media content & programing.
really you had to type in all caps just to say exactly what people have been saying for 6 months
Apparently its still necessary as people still don’t care that its bothersome and unnecessary. Same with bad grammar and especially misspelling. I mean, what browser doesn’t have an automatic spell check?
OH GET OVER YOURSELVES!!!!
Kristin Wiig is SO not funny. She plays one character and tries to pass it off as 10 different ones. I just don’t get her at all. She’s a bit like Keenan whose Sherri Shepherd bit is not different than his senator so-and-so bit. This cast, outside of Bill H(and, occasionally, Fred and Jason) is the pits.
Bill and Jason always make me laugh, even when their material isn’t funny. I don’t know why, but those guys can just look into the camera, and I’ll chuckle. When they have good material to work with (which is rare on SNL these days), they’re the best in the whole cast.
Sorry, but I disagree. Kristen is my favorite cast member.
what the writers need to realize is that Wiig is not their go-to cast member, there are way toom many sketches where she is the main source of comedy and she’s just not diverse enough in her comedy to pull it off, she’s very one-dimensional
The show in general was not good at all last night but Pearl Jam was great and Eddie Vedder must be actually taking care of himself now days because he looks really healthy.
When has Eddie not looked healthy? I kinda always think he looks great…. yum
I agree with the “YUM” comment but for a while there he was looking a little rough. Maybe he was just going through some kind of “phase” but he is looking better than ever now.
I think what everyone was seeing was that the whole band just looked happier and more relaxed than in the past. They were great…I’m seeing them May 9 and I can’t wait.
I think you have the last two weeks mixed up, Ken. Last week was “Remember These Sketches?” except that Zach Galifianakis lifted up every one of them and made us forget they were terrible. Jude’s show had more original sketches but he didn’t make them excel like Zach did so his show’s flaws are more noticeable.
Zach was an obnoxious slob who thinks way too highly of himself
Thought it was ok. Jude really looked as if he was game for anything and the night really could have been hilarious with him hosting. His part in the Password game was great. Word? Vodka. “you have it for breakfast with beets” “You give it to a baby when it’s hungry”. Hilarious. Wish they had given Jude better material.
I agree. His “bulge” in the same skit was hilarious. They should have had more of him and less Kristin. And I liked his opening monologue. It was subtle, but very funny.
Agreed. Jude Law has sharp comic timing (compare his earlier appearance on SNL, particularly his song in the opening monologue) and the material last night hardly made use of it. Most of the skits relied on repetitive jokes, many of which (the stenographer sketch being the worst offender) didn’t even have jokes worth laughing at the first time, let alone the fourth or fifth.
When you tune in to SNL only a couple times a year and you still get the impression that it’s stale and out of ideas…
I hope it’s a new staff of writers for Betty White’s hosting gig on May 8th. Hopefully Tina Fey will help write the show. The Password parody was beyond UNFUNNY.
Back to back sketches about killing young women and I turned the channel.
I was surprised they went that route. Bad decision.
Al Pacino’s “twas being a d!ck” line was the best of the night. Love Jude Law, but agree, the show wasn’t terribly funny.
It is a disappointing SNL. We have to watch and see how Betty White does on May 8. That one reason Betty didn’t want to be on SNL because of the writers and she did turned them down three times. Hope the writers for SNL will write some good material for her.
Considering she’s got a huge TV legacy, they should be able to write some incredible sketches for her. Mary Tyler Moore, Golden Girls, Password, even her occasional appearances on The Bold and the Beautiful, plus that SuperBowl commercial she did this year…I know I’m forgetting a whole lot of her work, but my point is, if SNL writers can’t write material for Betty White, the show should be canceled.
Here here, if her show sucks then I’m through with SNL, because they definitely suck if they can’t write Betty White funny.
I hope they give a nod to her work in the classic, Lake Placid.
*whew* I thought I was the only one who found this episode not entertaining. I guess the too-loud studio audience can give one that impression.
You forgot his american accent well done in the twilight zone sketch….
The Twilight Zone sketch was pretty funny. Have they ever done a Twilight Zone sketch using the characters from the “Twilight” series?
The Twilight Zone sketch was okay, but I would’ve preferred Law being interviewed by Hader’s Italian talk show guy, the Vinnie what’s his name. And too bad they didn’t do their Peter O’toole and Michael Caine sketch again.
Kudos! You just became a new writer for SNL!
Wait… you’re saying THIS WEEK was a game of “Remember this Sketch?” when you LOVED Zach Galifinakis last week? Some of the sketches were outdated and irrelevant (Vicky Cristina Barcelona?), but the Password parody and the “I can’t find my chapstick” lady haven’t been used as much as the Today Show or the unbearable What Up With That? (Where is the Target lady this season?)… Not the best episode of the season, but have any of them been THAT good?
Oh good, I’m not the only one who can’t stand “What’s up with that?” I leave the room whenever that one comes on and I nearly go crazy when my husband sings that tune!
The REALLY! skit was the best part of the show.
Agree. I thought Seinfeld was gonna stink up the joint, but he reminded me of just how good a comedian he still is.
Agreed! All Seinfeld had to do was wait for a four second count after a statement and then just say the word “Please” to get laughter. He’s a master at the craft.