Saturday Night Live Season 26 Reviews - Episode 8 - Lucy Liu / Jay-Z

 

"Connie Chung is pissed"

Cold Open: Chi-Chi's

4 Stars

Gore finally concedes to Bush

George W Bush is President now and Al Gore wants to make sure he uses this opportunity to unite the country.  Bush contemplates starting a war because they’re like super-sized executions.  Sometimes watching topical sketches from 20 years ago hurts.

Lucy Liu Monologue

4 Stars

The cast treats Lucy with respect

Lucy is the first Asian woman to host so in true SNL fashion they use this opportunity to make racially insensitive jokes.  I feel like this is coming from a good place, and it is funny, but it’s also a little weird to go through every Asian stereotype in one monologue.  Lucy does Jimmy’s laundry, massages Tracy, cooks a meal of Cocker Spaniel, pulls Kattan in a rickshaw, and does Lorne’s nails.  Thankfully, Lucy isn’t forced to play any stereotypes in any sketches.  I would have especially hated if she was in that Japanese Laverne & Shirley sketch from the Kate Hudson episode.

priceline.com

1 Star

William Shatner promotes a website

We saw this last season and I didn’t like it.  This is spoofing a series of commercials where William Shatner would speak sing in between talking about a hotel booking website.  There’s not much parody here, they’re just sort of doing it.  Plus Darrell’s impression isn’t even very good.

TRL

2 Stars

Gemini’s Twin introduces their new member

Gemini’s Twin is back with a new video and a new member.  Like Charlize Theron in the last sketch, she wasn’t hired to sing but rather she owned a minivan.  Also like in the last sketch, everything.  This was basically a carbon copy of the first one.  Lucy was funny here and I liked the performances but it still doesn’t make me laugh.

Jeopardy!

4 Stars

Celebrities compete in a game of knowledge

Darrell’s Sean Connery is back and joined by Jimmy as Robin Williams and Lucy as Catherine Zeta-Jones.  Not too hot on Lucy’s impression but Jimmy, Darrell and Will all get good laughs.  This doesn’t rise to the same levels as the best of these but still has some classic bits, specifically Anal Bum Cover and Connery drawing a picture of Alex Trebek having sex with a horse.

Pretty Living

1 Star

Helen Madden shows off her new lover

Thank God this is the last one of these.  Helen introduces us to her “cute little he-she”, a female lumberjack.  Absolutely nothing in this worked for me and I don’t think I’m alone as the audience was pretty quiet for this too.  I feel like a lot of this was built on the sight gag of a lesbian which is also fairly unpleasant.

Jarret's Room

3 Stars

College stoner gets dumped on his webcam

We have a recurring character debut.  I’m being lenient since this is the first one but something about these types of sketches instantly turns me off.  Yes, we’re moving into the new millennium and this is a webcast but I know a recurring character with a talk show sketch when I see it.  Jarret and his roommate Gobi smoke weed, go see a Steve Miller cover band, play pranks on their other roommate, and Jarret’s girlfriend dumps him.

Weekend Update

Once again, Jimmy blows his first joke and sounds like he’s going through puberty.  Then he does his hacky bit where he changes the words to popular songs.  I’ve said it before but there’s a reason “Weird Al” Yankovic has been able to sustain a career for 40 years.  He’s a tad more clever than changing the words of With Arms Wide Open to Are You Still Open and Beautiful Day to Christmas Day.  When Jimmy got Update I was most excited not to see these anymore, but alas they continued.

James Madison shows up to talk about the election confusion and the Electoral College but is much more concerned with the fact that his chair spins and the sun has come indoors.  Nice little commentary on the fact that we’re still playing by the rules set up by people who couldn’t even imagine a computer.

And for some ungodly reason we get Chris Kattan as Baby New Year who comes out, does a dance and has his diaper changed.  I thought this was just gross.

Jay-Z
"I Just Wanna Love U (Give It 2 Me)"

Jay-Z raps over a Rick James sample.  I always like it when rap artists perform with a band behind them.  This was pretty rad.

Trimming The Tree

4 Stars

Christmas ornaments wait in a box

A premise that was later reused in a future Christmas episode, Molly, Lucy, and others play Christmas ornaments anxiously awaiting getting chosen to go on the tree.  Lucy is an elf with one eye who was drawn on with a Sharpie.  I thought this was more cute than funny but I really enjoyed its sweetness.  Horatio is a California Raisin that hasn’t been on the tree since 1986 and Maya is in the wrong box as she’s the instructions for a space heater.

Murder In The Make Believe Ball Room

5 Stars

Robert Goulet sings Jay-Z songs

A splash of Jay-Z and two fingers of Goulet.  Thankfully this one doesn’t have any N-words but the ram is back to smoke some weed with the fellas.

Season's Greetings

Jimmy and Tina wish us Happy Holidays as does some random stranger.  Not rating this as it feels more like an NBC promo than a segment.

Jay-Z returns with "Is That Your Chick".  I usually don’t enjoy rap on SNL, mostly due to poor sound mixing, but this was really good.

Season's Greetings

4 Stars

Horatio and the gang return

Slightly different lyrics but the same stupid song.  Don’t know if we needed this two episodes in a row but this is how traditions are born.

FINAL ANALYSIS

"I can't remember how it ends but your mother's a whore”

Average

3.2 Stars

MVP

Jimmy Fallon
Monologue, TRL, Jeopardy, Jarret’s Room, Weekend Update, Trimming The Tree, Seasons Greetings

Best Sketch

Jeopardy!

Worst Sketch

Pretty Living

How I Would Have Lorne Michaels-ed It

A lot of recurring stuff up front made this one less memorable than it should have been. I could have done without one last Pretty Living and maybe open with Jarret’s Room just to get something fresh in the lead off spot.

Host Analysis

I really enjoyed her.  She has a pretty weak Catherine Zeta-Jones impression but the rest of her performances were fun and energetic.  She fit in well with Maya and Ana in Gemini’s Twin, she was cute and lively in Jarret’s Room, she was sympathetic and endearing in Trimming The Tree and, well she at least tried in Pretty Living.  She wouldn’t be high on my list of people to call back for a second time but she certainly did a good job.

Final Thoughts

Maybe I’m just a sucker for the Christmas episode because as I finish watching this episode My immediate thought is that I really enjoyed it.  But then I look back on what was in here and there’s nothing that will come close to sticking in my memory by the end of the season.  I think my feelings are mixed on this one because it’s so Jimmy heavy.  I barely had a choice in making him my MVP this week as he was all over this one.  And for everything he does that I like (his Robin Williams was really funny and he’s charming in Jarret’s Room) there’s something I can’t stand (his hacky parody songs on Update and the incessant smirking).  It’s hard to just focus on the positive when the bad stuff just makes me mad.  There was a lot of good stuff in this episode, but there was also Helen Madden and Chris Kattan getting a diapey change.

Up Next

Charlie Sheen hosts the first show of 2001, back when he was a lovable, whore loving, coke head instead of a sad, whore loving, coke head.