“It is making me angry AND horny”
Cold Open: Trump Press Conference
3 Stars
Trump’s first press conference as president-elect. Weird how these were considered scary times but I’m looking on them now as quaint as an episode of The Waltons. Questions quickly turn towards the alleged pee pee tape. Cecily is very funny as Trump’s tax lawyer with a bunch of fake papers.
Felicity Jones Monologue
Oof at this lack of comedic timing right off the bat from Felicity. The star of the new Star Wars movie gets a visit from Tina Fey as a Princess Leia like hologram. Tina gives hosting advice and sticks it to all the idiots who do sketch by sketch recaps.
“Does this show get reviewed?”
“Yes. Way too much.”
Take that, dorks.
Beard Hunk
The annual January Bachelor parody. Solid performances from the female cast and Felicity.
Shondra & Malik
Kenan’s threatening of Leslie is interrupted by his car stalling out. She helps him, he goes back to threatening her, and we repeat that joke. Not very funny but a well directed short.
Theatre Donor
Mikey is a very elderly man watching a play. He’s loud, has to be fed, and have his medical stockings changed. Weak ending but fun performance from Mikey.
The Princess And The Curse
Felicity has a mysterious curse. At night she gains 15 pounds. I wish it would have ended at the premise and have Beck’s prince run away. It goes on a little longer but gets a pretty good punchline.
Susan B. Anthony House
A group of women will Susan B. Anthony into existence to thank her but then have to awkwardly hang out with her as they wait for their taxi. Some of the outbursts are fun but this is a very slow sketch and not in a good way. It also suffers in comparison to a similarly themed Mr. Show sketch plus it’s got a really weak ending.
Sturgill Simpson
"Keep It Between The Lines"
Weekend Update
Fandango All Access
The creators of Hot Robot 3: Journey To Boob Mountain talk seriously about their film and how it makes sense in Trump’s America. Similar to the New York News sketch from the last episode this is an interview sketch about a purposefully bad movie but this one does it right by playing it straight until showing the clip of Hot Robot 3 which includes a hilarious reaction from Beck.
Sturgill Simpson returns with "Call To Arms"
Corporate Retreat
Introverted women share jokes about loose women. The jokes weren’t as fun as the performances and I was enjoying the sketch purely for the performances until the writers completely gave up on an ending.
“If we could all harness our boob energy, who knows what we could accomplish?”
Average
Average
2.7 Stars
MVP
Beck Bennett
Trump Press Conference, Beard Hunk, Theatre Donor, The Princess And The Curse, Weekend Update, Fandango All Access, Corporate Retreat
Best Sketch
Fandango All Access
Worst Sketch
Corporate Retreat
How I Would Have Lorne Michaels-ed It
I would swap Princess And The Curse and Shondra & Malik just because the former is funnier and has more energy. I would also swap Susan B. Anthony and Fandango as Susan’s dry tone would probably work better post-Update. Actually, make that the 10-1 sketch. And that monologue needed help. I remember this episode being a stinker probably because it just got off to a slow start.
Host Analysis
Definitely not as bad as I remember. She had just a few fumbles, the monologue was real stumbly, but for the most part she was just fine. I wouldn’t want to see her again but she wasn’t noticeably awful. I really enjoyed her in the Corporate Retreat sketch.
Final Thoughts
Again, not as bad as I remembered. But also again, I remember hating it. There wasn’t anything I truly disliked but noting too much to write home about either except Sturgill Simpson who really woke me up during the episode and probably boosted my enjoyment. An unexcitingly average episode of SNL and a fitting tribute to Tony Rosato.
Up Next
Aziz Ansari hosts. This is one I remember being really excited for and not being disappointed.
Great to see these reviews back, George. I sure know how it feels not to have the time to be as quick with these as possible.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I have to agree with a lot of your takes on this episode, though my review & opinion of it as a whole wasn’t as negative as the fan consensus, but it feels like an episode with the writers barely getting to do much all week. I did enjoy the Kenan/Leslie short and that Mikey Day theatre sketch, though. Nice to see Beck being so dominant all night (and looking very nice on Update).
This is one of the rare episodes where I'll skip the sketches to get to the musical performances. A Sailor's Guide to Earth is one of my favorite albums of all time, so it's absolutely fucking awesome to see Sturgill perform on network television.
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