Goldberg74

Here's tonight's thread.

Should be an interesting one.


<fieldset style="width: 500px; margin: 0px auto; font-size: smaller;"><legend>Season 42 (2016-2017)</legend>
SNL (S42E01) -- 10/01/16 -- H: Margot Robbie -- MG: The Weeknd
SNL (S42E02) -- 10/08/16 -- H: Lin-Manuel Miranda -- MG: twenty one pilots
SNL (S42E03) -- 10/15/16 -- H: Emily Blunt -- MG: Bruno Mars
SNL (S42E04) -- 10/22/16 -- H: Tom Hanks -- MG: Lady Gaga
SNL (S42E05) -- 11/05/16 -- H: Benedict Cumberbatch -- MG: Solange
SNL (S42E06) -- 11/12/16 -- H: Dave Chappelle -- MG: Tribe Called Quest
SNL (S42E07) -- 11/19/16 -- H: Kristen Wiig -- MG: The XX
SNL (S42E08) -- 12/03/16 -- H: Emma Stone -- MG: Shawn Mendes
SNL (S42E09) -- 12/10/16 -- H: John Cena -- MG: Maren Morris
SNL (S42E10) -- 12/17/16 -- H: Casey Affleck -- MG: Chance the Rapper
SNL (S42E11) -- 01/14/17 -- H: Felicity Jones -- MG: Sturgill Simpson
SNL (S42E12) -- 01/21/17 -- H: Aziz Ansari -- MG: Big Sean
SNL (S42E13) -- 02/14/17 -- H: Kristen Stewart -- MG: Alessia Cara
</fieldset>

Decker

There's no way that the cold opening could be any funnier or wackier than the actual Presidential statement today

MrX

Baldwin must have had other plans this weekend.

Jost's line about the Inauguration Concert being the second worst live performance Lincoln has ever attended was a good one

mwbmis

My guess is that they don't want to overuse him. It's a fair bet their will be no lack of material to lampoon in the coming months.

After today's performance, I imagine a cast member will be adding a Sean Spicer imitation to their repertoire too.

I've been an Aziz fan since the early days of P&R, but the sketches were mostly weak.

Eric F

Terrible.

davidh777

Yeah, I wouldn't expect Baldwin to appear every week, but it WAS the inauguration.

Then again, as Decker said, you can't tell parody from real life these days.

AaronHernandez

The only good sketch was the Kellyanne Conway musical number.

Hazel Motes

I thought the cold open was great.

Count Dooku

I thought this was one of the best shows of the season.

Unlike other shows with (maybe) two really strong sketches and A LOT of crap in between, this one was just more uniformly good.

The Bookworm sketch was the only true bomb for me. (No one but Conan should do that nerd voice.)

Good cold open.
Excellent monologue (grading on a curve from last week)
I really like the Uber piece
Good La La Land cop sketch
Okay Pizza place cop sketch
Very solid Update with Jones doing something different
Dirty Talk sketch was very funny
Lawyer sketch was funny

McKinnon's Chicago number was an amazing production but it bothers me that they have chosen to portray Conway in a positive light as a character

I know that there is a character on TV (past or present) that has the exact same speaking voice as Villasenor but I can't place it. Still her weird monotone is like anti-comedy. (It worked for that sketch)

writer106

Maybe it's Kermit the Frog.

Josh-da-man

I hope Beck Bennett doesn't end up getting poisoned.

mdc3000

She might be a great person but that voice is so off-putting that I can't believe she made the show - ZERO range... actually, I don't enjoy ANY of the 'featuring' players right now - especially can't stand Mikey Day.

chowderhead

Pete Davidson should be concerned not appearing in any skits and only doing monologues during Weekend Update. I am surprised he hasn't had a breakout character.

JeffTheAlpaca

He kills it when he does standup.

This show was not that bad. Leslie Jones did not appear in every sketch.

I think Che and Jost are probably the best thing on the show.

bralph

I agree with pretty much all of this. The Bookworm was the only huge missfire IMO. I thought the La La Land sketch was great, and I haven't even seen the movie, or any of the others they referenced.

mcnabb

Ansari's monologue was pretty good. I like that he didn't call out all Trump voters, but he was right about the 'lower case' kkk supporters.

Troy Stiffler

You Can't Do That on Russian Television.

*slime* Followed by untimely heart attack. Then family dies in mysterious countryside car accident.

JuryDuty

Me too. Made me wonder if Ansari was involved in the writing this week or something--so many more of the sketches were better than usual. His monologue was excellent, his "Talk Dirty" sketch was hilarious, the Weekend Update was good (as usual), and I also enjoyed the Lawyer and La La Land pieces.

I don't know what they were thinking about the bookworm piece though. The entire joke was that 90s culture was stupid, which may play for a laugh, but not an entire sketch. Should have at least moved this one to the back of the show.

Wasn't quite sure what to make of Cecily Strong's singing number to Obama. It looked like maybe something she just wanted to do, but it just kinda fell flat. Not like the song they had for Hilary a few shows back.

JeffTheAlpaca

Kate McKinnon did it better when she sang Hallelujah after Trump won the election.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/23/a...ump-tweet.html

SkullOrchard

While watching that 'To Sir, With Love' closing bit, I discovered that it's possible for me to simultaneously howl with laughter while retching my guts out.

At least they didn't slaughter another Leonard Cohen song.

writer106

She has a youtube channel that features videos of her impersonations. Some are good and others not so much. Her regular speaking voice is off putting. Villasenor has had online following for several years after she was a contestant on America's Got Talent. She was doing sketch videos last year for Mas Mejor which is owned by Lorne Michaels/Broadway Videos.

I don't care for any of the featured players. Mikey Day joined the SNL writing staff in 2013 so he will probably be back next season as a cast member. I think Villasenor and Alex Moffatt will be canned.

story

I laughed so hard at the Dirty Talk sketch that the cough that appeared to be over from my several weeks of bronchitis had me coughing for several minutes. So funny. Showed it to my wife and she laughed, too. Like Aziz's character, I too, don't like, "Oh, okay, it's appointment time" style talk!

Decker

Speaking of baffling cast members, why is Sasheer Zamata still a cast member? I get that they wanted a woman of color in the cast, but besides that I don't get it. I know nobody hates her the way they hate Moynihan or Bryant or Leslie Jones, but at least those guys try to be funny. Zamata only plays the straight woman -- the reporter, the shocked girlfriend, the unamused boss. She is either never funny or at very least has never been given a funny part to play or funny line to recite. Sure she can read the cue cards well and there's some use for a straight man (or woman) to play off of. But man, you'd think to be an SNL regular for multiple seasons, you'd just by default have been funny a few times, right!

kefrank

That's a good point. I can't think of a single character she's ever done. Say what you will about Leslie Jones, but at least she's notable/memorable.

Bill Needle

Wow, unless you are being sarcastic I could not disagree more with that. I checked out Davidson when he made the show (since I hadn't heard of him) and thought he was unimpressive to put it kindly, and I can't think of a single entertaining thing he has done on the show that rises above background character level. And the Che/Jost version of WU makes me long for the Kevin Nealon days it is that bad.