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| TV Reviews | |
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| TV Reviews | |
Live,' a bit canned Show lacks the urgency and crackle of last year Oct 9, 2009
You also can’t blame the show for the fact that the guest host who kicked off the show’s 35th season, Megan Fox, had probably agreed to appear so that she could promote her latest movie, “Jennifer’s Body,” which had already faded from most screens by the time the show aired. Fox didn’t even mention the movie during her opening monologue, unlike most “SNL” hosts, who tend to plug their latest project and then wait for applause. The premiere was, in general, a low-energy affair. Most of the following days’ press commentary centered on one of the new cast members, Jenny Slate, who accidentally uttered an obscenity in a sketch that required her to repeat “frickin’” dozens of times. The ratings so far this season are rather low energy as well. The premiere received a 4.6 rating in metered-market households, and the second week’s show, starring the movie actor Ryan Reynolds, received a 4.7. Those numbers are down sharply from the equivalent broadcasts last fall, both of which featured a guest appearance by Tina Fey, who did her now classic impersonation of Gov. Sarah Palin; they received a 7.5 and 7.3 rating. NBC points out that “SNL” viewership is nonetheless up slightly from fall 2007. The show’s season premieres tend to be disappointing comedically, perhaps because of high expectations. It didn’t bode well that Fox’s monologue relied on one of the show’s lamest fallbacks, a cast member standing up in the audience to ask a question. Fox’s sketches proved she can do comedy, but none of them required her to play anything but a babe. In two of them—a “digital short” and a sketch stuck in the death zone between the musical guest’s last number and the closing credits—she actually played herself. There were actually two digital shorts in the episode, both of which were about as funny and pointed as those lame film segments that used to air during the show back in the ’70s under the rubric “Schiller’s Reel.” The term “digital short” reeks of boomer desperation; it might be better replaced by “a segment we’re going to post on the Internet in the hope that it will ‘go viral,’ which we think is a good thing although we’re not exactly sure what it means.” The show’s comedy generally seems aimed at a no-longer-young suburban professional audience, the same people who fell in love with the show back in the ’70s. Whereas back then the main set looked like a gritty New York subway platform, it’s now a replica of Grand Central Station, complete with a sign listing stops in the bedroom communities of Connecticut. So there were sketches about Muammar Qaddafi, prescription-drug ads, singles’ chat lines and Grady Wilson, a character from the ’70s sitcom “Sanford and Son.” The musical guest, U2, was unlikely to offend this demographic. The “Weekend Update” segment, now hosted solo by Seth Meyers, spent too much time finding easy punch lines in obscure news stories instead of addressing the big events of the summer and fall. As was the case last season, Kristen Wiig, the cast’s only real female star, was overused. She has a decent comic range, but by the time she appeared in that aforementioned closing sketch with Fox, we had seen it all. Ryan Reynolds’ show last Saturday was funnier and looser, and it actually featured an actual pop star on the rise, Lady Gaga. It opened with a bit that was both fresh and surprising in that it challenged the assumption that all late-night political comedy is liberal. President Obama, played by one of the show’s mainstays, Fred Armisen, defended himself from charges that he has moved the country toward socialism by pointing out that he has, in fact, done nothing since he took office: “I’m seeing two big accomplishments: jack and squat.” A “Family Feud” parody featuring John and Mackenzie Phillips was at least topical. “Weekend Update” actually stuck to the week’s big stories. Showing that “SNL” can still draw big stars, Scarlett Johansson, Reynolds’ wife, appeared in a reiteration of a sketch she had done while hosting the show a few years ago. And Madonna showed up to get into a catfight with her supposed rival Lady Gaga. “What kind of name is Lady Gaga?” said Madonna. “It sounds like baby food.” It would have been funnier if the two divas hadn’t stepped on each other’s lines; maybe Madonna is too big a star to go to rehearsal. The week’s digital short proved a hard-and-fast rule: These bits are funny only if Andy Samberg sings or raps in them. After 35 years, “SNL” should know its own strengths—and weaknesses—better.
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