Continue reading “President Loser bars the press again; in other news, it’s a day that ends in ‘Y’”
Not even Taylor Swift can save Dakota Johnson’s ‘Saturday Night Live’
Saturday Night Live
Dakota Johnson & Turnstile
October 3, 2026
Look. Dakota Johnson is not for everyone. She has a very laconic, even terse delivery, and she’s not exactly known as a comic actor. She’s not wacky. And despite that, to their credit, Saturday Night Live managed to find a couple of places where her very wry personality worked well in this episode.
But for the most part, the episode was a disappointment for a couple of reasons. First, as noted, Dakota Johnson can be funny when the writing is in her wheelhouse (see this great “Please Don’t Destroy” bit from the last time she hosted): namely, when Johnson is being mean and dismissive. When they ask her to do an impersonation or play a character (I’m thinking specifically about the Game of Thrones spoof in this episode), she’s just not up to the task; she lacks goofiness.
But the disappointment in the episode doesn’t land entirely at Johnson’s feet — the writing just wasn’t there this week. The episode felt like a hodgepodge of sketches that any host could have been plugged into, bits that they didn’t have to worry a serious actor would mess up. But the sketches were also just weak, especially in the back half of the episode. Listen, it wasn’t as bad as last week, and Turnstile was a great musical act, but it is an episode no one is going to remember two months from now.
Continue reading “Not even Taylor Swift can save Dakota Johnson’s ‘Saturday Night Live’”
‘Carrie,’ ‘Eternally Yours,’ ‘NCIS: NY,’ ‘Below’ and everything else you don’t want to miss on TV this week
Eternally Yours (CBS)
NCIS: New York (CBS)
The future of ‘Jimmy Kimmel Live!’ is surprisingly uncertain
Welp. The Paramount/Warner Bros. merger is all but a done deal, like it or not.
Could this be the end of Bari Weiss at CBS News?
All the shows that have been cancelled in 2026 (so far)
All the shows that have been renewed in 2026 (so far)
Jalen Brunson fumbles (?) strikes out (?) as host of ‘Saturday Night Live’
Saturday Night Live
Jalen Brunson & Katseye
September 26, 2026
The thing is, it’s not Jalen Brunson’s fault. The man is a star; a great NBA player who gave his city a championship three decades in the making. And so I’m not in the least bit surprised that the cast and crew of Saturday Night Live wanted to meet him work with him — so much so that they pushed up the season premiere to accommodate his schedule.
But the bottom line is, Jalen Brunson is a professional athlete. And if you’re a professional athlete, unless your last name is “Manning,” you’re not going to be great at reading lines, doing comedy, or acting. That’s not part of your job description, and no one expects it to be! And yet, every couple of years, Saturday Night Live has a bout of amnesia and thinks, “Yeah, but what if [Famous Athlete] could act and/or be funny?” And here we are again.
You gave it a shot, Jalen. But maybe stick to the court.
Continue reading “Jalen Brunson fumbles (?) strikes out (?) as host of ‘Saturday Night Live’”
