[TV] Saturday Night Live S36E17

Well, it's kind of sad the first Saturday Night Live review for my new blog has to be one of the worst SNL episodes i have seen this year, and which followed an actually very funny one just one week ago when Miley Cyrus was the host, and also because the previous time Zach Galifianakis hosted this show, even his intro monologue was just amazing… but i didn't see any traces of that in this edition of one of my favorite TV shows.
I could tell that things were going to be heading downhill after the first sketch, a parody of a sports show in which they were picking up who the craziest person of the planet was, which was totally uninteresting and unfunny. I mean, by now, we all know Charlie Sheen is insane, i didn't feel we needed another SNL sketch to remind us of that (the one in the previous week, "Duh! Winning!" was the one i did enjoy a lot).

They then followed with a parody of "The Talk", pretty much stating what everyone already knows by now: that the show is a "The View" wanna-be. That was the whole premise of the sketch, which i felt was bland and unoriginal. And speaking of bland, the next sketch, "The Kings of Catchphrase" was another huge missed arrow in a show that was full of lost darts already: we get it, you're parodying a bunch of comedy tours where the comedians are NOT funny, but being unfunny the whole sketch to convey that idea… i felt it was just too much.

We then got another installment of "Scared Straight", sadly, a very uninspired one… i don't even know why SNL still continues doing this sketch; the last one they did with Betty White was very funny and it could have been a nice farewell for the skit, but after this one, i hope they do pick it up with something better in the future.

I sort of thought things would maybe improve after watching the "Zach Galifianakis looks for an assistant" sketch, in which the kids were surprisingly entertaining and their interaction with Zach was really natural and even amusing. Even Jessie J, who performed right after that, was a welcome surprise, and even though i felt her music belonged in the 60's, she won me over with her personality and energy. Props to her.

Sadly though, just when i thought things were going to indeed pick up, we are exposed to what is probably is one of the worst Weekend Updates of the season. What happened to Seth Meyers ideas? Did he run out of them because he had to perform in the catchphrase comedy sketch before? I really don't know, but it was at this point that i almost stopped watching the show entirely for the night.
I kept going, regardless, and was bored again to death with the "Dog dying from Erotic asphyxiation" bit… i mean, what was the point? Have the show writers truly lost their touch? Specially after watching the next sketch, "Celebrity Scoop", in which the whole point of it was to establish what nice people Canadians are, as if that was an obscure topic that needs some light shone upon.

We get then Jessi J's second song, and again, she was excellent, but still didn't feel she saved the night at all, particularly since she was followed by the night's two most boring sketches: "Worse than Corn Syrup" and "Escaping from the Titanic disguised as a woman".

They end the night saying they apparently ran out of time to air a final sketch, and we see Mr. Galifianakis' head shaved in the famous shape that Mr. T used to sport in the "A-Team" TV series. I don't even know if this was true or not, but i don't think even that would have rescued this show from the disaster it turned out to be.

Again, i'm sad i had to start my SNL reviews in such a bad note, but as a fan of Saturday Night Live, i just always expect more from its writers, and this was one time where they absolutely did not deliver. Better luck next time, guys!

Tags: (TV) Comedy