Tonight’s Saturday Night Live is a rerun (from January, Jesse Eisenberg host), so I thought it would be a good time to pause and take stock of season 36 of SNL.
In general, the show has followed its usual pattern, booking more movie stars with films to plug as hosts than TV stars. There’s been a heavy reliance upon recurring characters, but unlike season 35, the current SNL has made a greater effort to find face-time its new cast members: Vanessa Bayer, Jay Pharoah, Taran Killam, and Paul Brittain. (One wonders whether a similar effort might have saved the talented but neglected Michaela Watkins in season 34.)
Let’s look very briefly at each show, and average out a season grade:
• Amy Poehler/Katy Perry (9/25/10) Strong performance by Poehler, including some of her fan-fave characters such as Amber, the woman with one leg; Perry was also excellent both as musical guest and in making fun of her then-recent skirmish with Sesame Street. B+
• Bryan Cranston/Kanye West (10/2/10) Failed to make good use of Cranston, who is of course a superb comic actor. He was probably on-screen less than any host all season thus far. C
• Jane Lynch/Bruno Mars (10/9/10) Lynch was a solid team player, ceding the spotlight even when she was the star of a sketch; Mars was silky-smooth and one of the season’s musical high points. B+
• Emma Stone/Kings of Leon (10/23/10) Stone displayed a lot of versatility, was a good Lindsay Lohan in a View parody, and loved her in the I-broke-my-arm Digital Short. B+
• Jon Hamm/Rihanna (10/30/10) Hamm is proving one of the best recurring hosts, and reliable sketches such as a “Vincent Price’s Halloween Special,” pushed this one near the top. A-
• Scarlett Johansson/Arcade Fire (11/13/10) The opening line of my review: “Scarlett Johansson presided over a convocation of crickets during this week’s Saturday Night Live.” Weak, weak, weak. D+
• Anne Hathaway/Florence and the Machine (11/20/10) Remember before the Oscars, when everyone loved Anne Hathaway? She was strong throughout here, as in a fine Bayer/”Miley Cyrus Show” sketch that featured Hathaway as Katie Holmes, an impersonation that was rumored to have miffed the object of her satire. B+
• Robert De Niro/Didd-Dirty Money (12/4/10) De Niro was plugging his Little Fockers movie; Diddy was promoting Dirty Money; both were flops. D+
• Paul Rudd/Paul McCartney (12/11/10) Rudd wasn’t given sketches as strong as he’s had in the past, and this will be remembered, if at all, as the night McCartney dominated, with a slew of musical performances instead of the standard two. C+
• Jeff Bridges/Eminem (12/18/10) Beginning the holiday season early, SNL seemed to have one foot out the door for a vacation. Bridges wasn’t even called upon to parody True Grit, but the show found room for a spoof of Sundance Channel programming. File this under: Who cares? C-
• Jim Carrey/The Black Keys (1/8/11) Who can forget Carrey’s Black Swan parody? It made the night. B+
• Gwyneth Paltrow/Cee-Lo Green (1/15/11) Awkward joking about Green’s hit being retitled “Forget You.” But this edition deserves points for trying new things, such as interesting, sometimes quite clever sketches about Shakespeare, The Rent Is Too Damn High Party, and NBC’s doomed The Cape. B
• Jesse Eisenberg/Nicki Minaj (1/29/11) Two excellent sketches you may want to watch again tonight: The “Do The Creep” Digital Short, and “The Bride of Blackenstein,” a supposed lost 1972 blaxploitation classic that featured Jay Pharoah playing Dr. Frankenstein with the voice of Bootsy Collins. B+
• Dana Carvey/Linkin Park (2/5/11) I was in the minority here: I recall that you readers were much more fond of Carvey re-doing many of his trademark characters than I was; in fact, I thought Jon Lovitz’s cameo was funnier than anything Carvey did. Upgraded slightly to reflect popular opinion: B
• Russell Brand/Chris Brown (2/12/11) Pretty grim. Brand couldn’t break out of his usual persona with any range. The high point? An excellent Stefon “Weekend Update” moment courtesy of Bill Hader. C
• Miley Cyrus/The Strokes (3/5/11) A pleasant surprise, with Cyrus willing to spoof her own kiddie fame with a “Disney Acting School Sketch, and one of SNL‘s best crazy-non-sequitur sketches, featuring French characters dancing. B
• Zach Galifianakis/Jesse J (3/12/11) Another instance where you and I may have differed. I thought Galifianakis was terrific; many of you thought he and the show were either unfunny, too crude, or both. I’d still give the show a: B+
Toting them up (mind you, I’m no school teacher, but I think this average of roughly accurate), we get a season-to-date grade of… B. Better than expected, yes?
Agree? Disagree?
What do you think of the SNL season thus far? Looking forward to Elton John as the show’s next combo host/musical guest?
Twitter: @kentucker
Zach G , Jesse Eisenberg, and John Hamm were all rated too high.
I thought Eisenberg was rated too low. He was my favorite host of the season.
Agreed with Sara. He was clearly the best.
Eisenberg was pretty lame, I loved the energy from Joseph Gordon Levitt though. I think new players Vanessa Bayer and Jay Pharoh are going to be the future stars of the show and hopefully will have big careers
I agree! I was worried about Jesse doing SNL but he really pleasantly surprised. Loved his energy all throughout. And I doubt any other host would agree to play Igor in a sketch… Igor hahaha! That was fun!
Mine too, though Jim Carrey was close.
ITA! I thought his show was a riot. “Bride of Blakenstein” is the best SNL sketch I’ve seen in a long, long time (for the love of God, SNL, please dump the unfunny Keenan Thompson and promote Jay Pharoah to full-time cast status). I also thought the sketch with the old news reporter was very funny; and while I know I’m in the minority on this, I think the “Spa Talk” sketch showed real potential (Eisenberg’s family in that sketch was very funny.)
Zach Galifianakis/Jesse J worst show, very boring! seemed like a repeat ( a repeat of a boring episode!) I literally had to change channels again and again checking every few minutes in hopes of some humor. Never saw a minute of it.
Paul McCartney was a fine host! Oh he wasn’t the host??? He was in the opening monologue and about 4 sketches… Seemed like a co-host at least. Best show of the season (with the possible exception of the first with amy poehler and a handful of former SNL stars.)
Bring McCartney back as host again (for the first time) SOON!
I totally agree. The Jesse Eisenberg-hosted episode has been my favorite of the season so far.
I am going to have to give it a D- .. Sorry but this show isn’t funny anymore. I’ve tried watching it and it’s very boring, unimaginative, and isn’t like SNL from the 90s or 80s. It just doesn’t have what it takes.
This is the exact same crap that people say about each year of the show and then five years later we are wishing the next guys could be as good as Bill Hader. You are a tool.
You know, Ben, even the boy who cried wolf eventually saw a real wolf. And nobody believed him. But the show really is bad now, whether people believe it after all the years of crying wolf or not.
I’m pretty easily amused and rarely crack a smile when I bother to tune in.
Also, calling someone a tool over a TV show? Get a grip.
I understand Ben’s point of view. I’m not attacking the people who perform for this show, I think it might be the writers? I don’t know. I think they need to fix it though.
They NEED to cut the show down to an hour.
Just show the best skits – or keep them all short and punchy rather than letting them start to dither.
The quality would go way up – and the ratings would follow.
I thought Eisenburg did a great job. I’m hearing rumor that Justin Timberlake is hosting the season finale. I hope that turns out to be true since he’s always been a great host.
zach G had the best monologue but other then that i cant remember the rest. oh and Stefon rocks
zack is some hipster wannabe, and he is NOT funny. He was like the LEAST funny of them all.
Overgraded almost every single one, Russel Brand was horrible episode to the point I almost gave up on them. Luckily Miley came back the next time and gave me some hope.
Jon Hamm’s latest was his worst so far, but it was still better than the rest of the hosts this season put together. If it doesn’t pick up soon, I’m just going to fastforward to the 3 good minutes of Weekend Update.
The biggest surprise I thought was definitely Miley Cyrus. I expected her top bomb big time, and she did the exact opposite. The biggest disappointments were Russell Brand and Jim Carrey who mostly fell victim to the shows weak writing. I’d be hard pressed to remember off hand many of the sketches from any of the shows this season. On absolutely stands out for me. The Sports Bar sketch at the very end of the episode Dana Carvey with the two guys in trench coats acting like an 80′s Euro-band was probably the funniest sketch of the entire season so far. I keep tuning in because they keep booking these big names to host but instead of grading each episode I give a C- to the entire season up to this point. Too much wasted opportunity and potential gone to waste. The musical acts on the other hand have been great this season.
I thought a jim Carey was the bet host of the year and the Miley ep wa good despite her, not because of her.
Jim was great. You could put anyone from the old days up there, and they would look terrific.
Do you just mean “from the old days” like hosts that have been famous for awhile? Because Jim Carrey was never a cast member and only hosted once before, if I remember correctly.
He is a real actor/performer, and not just some dumb comedian dude.
I have to agree with what you said, Miley is a competent actress, too bad she has a dope for a father. She is very funny, and as long as she stays out of the limelight for her bad decesions regarding bongs and such, she will be fine,. The dana carvey episode was the funniest this season,. I totally agree with the last skit where carvey is in an 80s band. I laughed so hard, thats the only repeat i will be watching. Give that one an A.
Loved Russell Brand but yes, his episode was disappointing. He’s done so much better in those MTV award shows.
actually did not mind Russel but i will rewatch for the Eminem bit on Update. Taran is awesome.
I thought Jeff Bridges,Amy Phoeler,Dana Carvey were the best 1 of the seasonthey should keep Vanessa Bayer cut the rest of newbies and bringg back Jenny Slate
Jeff Bridges,Amy Phoeler,Dana Carvey best episodes they should keep Vanessa Bayer and Jay Pharoh and get rid of the other 2 bring back Jenny Slate worst eps of the year Russell Brand Miley Cyrus
I agree about Miley Cyrus; she was really comfortable up there (and funny). Jim Carrey was awesome imo; I loved his impressions at the psychic reading and the It’s a Small World creepy dancing ride. Russell Brand just isn’t as funny as he thinks he is…
Seems about right, but I’ve got to disagree about “crazy-non-sequitur” sketch in the Miley Cyrus episode. It wasn’t funny at all. Also, Dana Carvey was great! As someone who never saw any of his original material on the show, I thought his re-doings of his classic characters were great! I had nothing to compare them to and was in hysterics.
Good calls in praising the Jon Hamm, Jim Carrey, Jesse Eisenberg, and Miley Cyrus episodes. Way off in slamming the Jeff Bridges ep. (to answer your question regarding that Sundance channel bit [Jeff'd] – I cared. It was one of the best sketches of the season.) As for Scarlett Johansson, I initially thought the episode and host were horrible, but I have rethought it (a bit) thanks to a few standout sketches (the Unstoppable trailer, St. Kat’s middle school, the What Was That? Digital Short, Stars of Tomorrow). And how could you not mention the standard-setting performances from Kanye?
Can we start a Facebook page imploring SNL to never bring back Robert DeNiro? The man is either sincerely not funny, or he can’t be bothered to do anything except read cue cards. I always expect more from him, but am always disappointed,
PLEASE STOP THE PAIN!
I agree with you totally. It’s painful to watch such an exceptionally talented actor make an ass of himself on SNL. Not only does he not memorize his lines, he’s a bad cue card reader. Clearly, live TV should not on his list of things to do.
Ken you deserve your reputation of being on the SNL payroll for these reviews
They are desperate at this point. I wouldn’t be surprised!
Desperate? SNL is as popular as it has ever been. In fact, it is usually the highest rated program on NBC… which, admittedly, isn’t saying much.
Mostly agree, especially that Jon Hamm was the best. Although he’s great on Mad Men, would love to see him in a comedy role some time.
I liked Dana Carvey a bit more than you did, and Zach Glaifianakis.
Then check out his amazing work on “30 Rock.”
I really don’t understand why SNL does so many outdated skits, like the game shows with old celebs and the Vincent Price stuff.
I’m sure it’s funny to some people but why not parody characters that younger people know about?
Cause they can pretty much only do white people 85% of the time.
Imagination isn’t something easily copied or faked. I guess that answers your question hopefully.
DING DING DING!! I so agree! They hang on to these old recurring skits for dear life, when what really should be happening is similar to what’s going on with Jimmy Fallon’s show – why haven’t they parodied Jersey Shore, Real Housewives, Twilight, Teen Mom!? Is it because Jimmy thought of it first??
Those would be golden because everyone knows about them. That new girl tried to go there with Miley Cyrus, and Miley brought on a Justin Bieber and Lindsay Lohan, which killed – however she is NOT a cast member.
The digital short “Firelight” was a spoof on Twilight w/ Taylor Swift, it was pretty funny. And I know they did realhousewives.
It’s past your bedtime, life noobie. And get a haircut.
Jesse Eisenberg and Jon Hamm were my favorites of the season.
That’s definitely not saying much with what we have to compare them with
people still watch that thing?
I’m sorry that I did watch it. That’s how much these last couple of seasons stunk.
My favorite hosts were Hamm, Galifinakis, and Eisenberg. I didn’t see the Cyrus episode but I’ve heard she was surprisingly good. I only watched Arcade Fire’s performances and the Unstoppable sketch of Johansson’s show, both of which I thought were great. Arcade Fire and The Black Keys are my picks for best music guests. Also, I think the “Paul” show’s score is too low.
One more thing: while Russell Brand’s episode was pretty weak as a whole, I thought the Guy Ritchie/Sexy Beast spoof with unintelligible British accents was one of the best skits of the season.
I totally agree on that sketch which is even more funny because it has a grain of truth in it. We often have to rewind (or turn on closed captioning) on British movies to figure out what they are saying. “In Bruges” was particularly difficult to understand.
That was one of the worst skits ever on SNL in recent memory.
MemphisMom – In Bruges was an Irish film not a British film. It’s like me saying ‘that American film’ instead of Canadian.
Well, it was an Irish film set in Belgium with many characters not from Ireland. I stand corrected on the nationality issue, but my point was about the need for subtitles in an “english” language movie. Also, I have known many Canadians who insist that they are Americans (from the same continent) and would have no problem with a Canadian movie being called American.
I agree. The Black Keys were my favorite. Wasn’t a fan until I saw them live and their sound is remarkable. And honestly, the only reason I watch SNL is for the Lonely Island Digital Shorts.
Why can’t they get a great female host? (Tina and Amy don’t count because they used to work there.) I wonder if it is because women are treated badly there. There are many funny women out there. Funny that so few appear there.
I’m sure somebody’s going to take offense to this but there really aren’t that many funny women in Hollywood. Most women in entertainment get hired based on looks and they usually aren’t funny. Jane Lynch is brilliant but how many women do you see in Hollywood that look like Jane Lynch.
You mean there aren’t any at all or there aren’t any “big-name” funny women in Hollywood because they are hired by looks first?
Jane Lynch is beautiful in my book…I think she’s gorgeous!! Baby blue eyes, lovely face and figure,and a fabulous smile,tres pretty.Forget the fact that she’s one of the funniest ladies in hollywood I think she’s one of the top comedic actors period…sarcastic,cutting and her comedic timing is genius! I hope she has her own feature out soon, love her!
The Jane Lynch, Anne Hathaway, and Miley Cyrus episodes were great. And last season’s Betty White episode is the gold standard against which all SNLs are measured.
I always enjoy watching Anne Hathaway in SNL. She’s always terrific. Too bad about the Oscar hosting gig though, but I blame that on James.
The Miley Cyrus episode has my favorite new characters of the season (so far): Tabu and Apl, the rest of the Black Eyed Peas. I can’t wait to see those guys again! Of course, SNL will end up overexposing these characters, inadvertantly creating a black hole of irony…
Yeah, that was a great skit!
The Black Eyed Peas? You mean those guys that practically ruined the super bowl half time? You need to get out more.
Um, maybe you should not talk about things you have no clue about. She was saying she loved the characters based on them, not saying she wanted to see the actual band more.
Amy Poehler: C
Bryan Cranston: C
Jane Lynch: B
Emma Stone: B
Jon Hamm: A-
Scarlett Johannson: C-
Anne Hathaway: B
Robert DeNiro: B
Paul Rudd: C
Jeff Bridges: C
Jim Carrey: A-
Gwyneth Paltrow: B-
Jesse Eisenberg: B
Dana Carvey: B+
Russell Brand: B-
Miley Cyrus: B+
Zach Galifianakis: A-
Overall: C+
Zach is so over-rated. No way does he get even close to an A.. You are crazy.
Galifinakis was horrible. Wasted talent. Bur as far as Johansan’s episode, it doesn’t deserve a C-. It deserves a D. It was horrible.
Agree…that guy is not funny
Marcus I actually agree with all of your grades (with the exception of Bridges because I missed that episode).
I think B- or C+ sounds more like what I’ve seen. If they can keep breaking away from the Armisten cold open and too much of the same old Wigg characters then things should continue to improve. It seems like they are finally figuring out that those two actors do best when working with the rest of the cast and not trying too hard to outshine them, which usually results in abrasive skits. I too think that trying to highlight the new players was wise, although they still need to inject some more talent. They really need to look for people from a wider pool of ethnicities too. The world simply is not as white as SNL makes it seem. An African American female could do wonders to broaden what kinds of skits they could write.
True…in her day Maya Rudolph was one of the stars of the ensemble…and Ellen Clegghorn was pretty funny, too.
Look at the ethnic percentages in this country and you’ll see why there are a lot of white people.
Based on your comments you are most likely a middle-class white male…what, in his 20′s, early 30′s?
You obviously are looking at ethnic percentages from the 1950s. You do realize that whites will be the minority in the not too distant future. Maybe you should heed your own advice before commenting next time, Pittner
Whites may someday be less than 50% of the entire population, but they will always be the largest single ethnicity, and will propbably always be the majority (over 50%) outside of the big cities. Don’t break out the party favors yet, Frank.
Miley was rated FAR too high.
she was better than at least a third of the other hosts this season. probably in the top ten hosts of the season.