Category: saturday night live: season 43

Jessica Chastain is very good. Last night’s ‘Saturday Night Live’ wasn’t.

by Therese Odell, posted in saturday night live: season 43

Saturday Night Live
Jessica Chastain & Troye Sivan
January 20, 2018

There is an expression Dan Savage coined to represent good qualities in a sexual partner: “GGG,” which stands for “good, giving and game.” It turns out those same qualities are what is required in a good Saturday Night Live host: good at acting, giving in their exchanges with the cast mates and game for anything, including making themselves look foolish. And to the beautiful Jessica Chastain’s credit, she is quite GGG!

However, it doesn’t much matter how GGG any host is unless the material they are given is actually worthy of their goodness, giving and gameness. Last night’s sketches weren’t. With a couple of exceptions, the writers let Chastain down last night with overly broad bits and sketches that lacked a point. I don’t know who wrote which sketches, but it sure felt like last night was a wasted opportunity to give the few women in the writers’ room a chance to write sketches for an actress known for her strength and outspokenness. HIRE MORE WOMEN, LORNE.

Continue reading “Jessica Chastain is very good. Last night’s ‘Saturday Night Live’ wasn’t.” →

‘Saturday Night Live’: Sam Rockwell was fucking great

by Therese Odell, posted in saturday night live: season 43

Saturday Night Live
Sam Rockwell & Halsey
January 13, 2018

The story that will dominate the news about last night’s episode of Saturday Night Live is that Sam Rockwell accidentally said “fucking” during one sketch, Colin Jost deliberately said “shithole” during “Weekend Update,” and as a result there will be a bunch of think pieces about how this is a reflection on how our culture is being vulgarized by our vulgar President and blah blah blah blah blah.

But what we should really be talking about was just how good last night’s Saturday Night Live was and why. It’s easy to credit a talented host, and let me be clear, Sam Rockwell was a talented host and SNL needs to figure out when they can bring him back as soon as possible. Last night’s episode also seemed to almost have a theme to it: the awkwardness of social situations in a politically correct era, which in its own way helped tie the episode together.

But you know what I think really made this episode work was the brevity of the sketches: not counting the monologue and Weekend Update, there were 10 sketches last night, most of which were about three minutes long. Keeping the sketches tight and brief meant that no one sketch overstayed its welcome and that even if you didn’t care for a particular bit, a new one was just around the corner. It felt fresh and light and invigorated. And in conclusion, the takeaway from last night’s episode should be: don’t be like this intro, keep the writing short and sweet.

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Kevin Hart’s Christmas ‘Saturday Night Live’ episode was a giant lump of coal

by Therese Odell, posted in saturday night live, saturday night live: season 43

Saturday Night Live
Kevin Hart & Foo Fighters
December 9, 2017

Hoo boy. HOO BOY.

Continue reading “Kevin Hart’s Christmas ‘Saturday Night Live’ episode was a giant lump of coal” →

James Franco hosts a ‘Saturday Night Live’ that tries — and fails — to be controversial

by Therese Odell, posted in saturday night live: season 43

Saturday Night Live
James Franco & SZA
December 9, 2017

This is the fourth time James Franco has hosted Saturday Night Live (which means the next time he comes back — and he will be back — he will be inducted into the “Five-Timers Club”). And this just makes sense, he’s a natural fit for the show. Funny, goofy and willing to be self-deprecating, Franco blends rather seamlessly into the cast (if the cast were constantly plugging their new movie, The Disaster Artist).

Unfortunately, he appeared on a night in which the writers seemed more determined to provoke than entertain, and they weren’t even particularly successful at that. To be fair to Franco, he did his very best with material that often fell short of his comedic talents. In fact, in most of the sketches he was in, Franco was the best thing about them.

Oh well, maybe next time, Franco. (And we all know there will be a next time — no way you’re going to pass up that Five-Timers robe.)

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Saoirse Ronan is given not much to do in an otherwise fairly solid ‘Saturday Night Live’

by Therese Odell, posted in saturday night live: season 43

Saturday Night Live
“Saoirse Ronan & U2”
December 2, 2017

Saoirse Ronan is the young actress who made a name for herself about 10 years ago in the film Atonement and is now receiving All of the Praise for her performance in the indie film, Lady Bird. Saoirse is talented, she is beautiful, she is likable and funny and Saturday Night Live gave her fuck all to do last night.

With the exception of the final sketch, Saoirse was stuck mostly in background roles and characters that a nameless extra could have just as easily and just as memorably performed. Which is a shame, because as evidenced by EVERYTHING SHE HAS EVER DONE EVER she is perfectly capable of delivering.

That said, it wasn’t a bad episode. It wasn’t a GREAT! episode or anything, but aside from a sketch or two that didn’t land, there was nothing in this episode that was so terrible that it made me want to throw something through my television. So we’ll count this as a win. Good job, guys! Except for the part where you snubbed your host. Don’t snub your host.

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‘Saturday Night Live’: Chance the Rapper keeps alive a good episode streak

by Therese Odell, posted in saturday night live: season 43

Saturday Night Live
“Chance the Rapper and Eminem”
November 18, 2017

Saturday Night Live is finally on something of a (sorta) winning streak. Following last week’s strong outing with Tiffany Haddish at the helm, Chance the Rapper hosted the series for the first time and was an easy fit with the cast. Chance the Rapper is a charming human being who, like Justin Timberlake and Drake, radiates an air of wit and intelligence, making him something of an ideal Saturday Night Live host.

But aside from Chance being a natural comedian who is willing to embrace the goofy, the material was just better this week than it had been earlier in the season. If I were to speculate, I’d point out that the hosts of the seasons’ best episodes both happen to be African-American and that maybe, possibly what is happening here is that the minorities in the writers’ room were given more of an opportunity to pitch their ideas and express their perspectives, leading to better, more original material. And if SNL were smart, they’d realize that maybe they could make that a regular thing, instead of just saving it for special, minority-hosting occasions.

Ha ha, that’ll never happen.

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‘Saturday Night Live’ should thank Tiffany Haddish for saving the best episode of the season so far

by Therese Odell, posted in saturday night live: season 43

Saturday Night Live
“Tiffany Haddish & Taylor Swift”
November 11, 2017

Tiffany Haddish, the breakout star from this summer’s hit Girls Trip, hosted an inconsistent but occasionally brutally funny Saturday Night Live. While I’m not ready to say that it was a great or even really good episode, thanks to Haddish’s vibrancy and a slew of blisteringly on-point jokes about sexual harassment and abuse of power that took aim at both Roy Moore and SNL favorite Louis C.K., it was the best episode of the season so far. Not that that’s a particularly high bar to clear, LARRY DAVID. Still, I’ll take what I can get at this point.

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Larry David and the Astros appear on a ‘Saturday Night Live’ that was pretteh, pretteh, pretteh all over the place

by Therese Odell, posted in saturday night live: season 43

Saturday Night Live
“Larry David & Miley Cyrus”
November 4, 2017

Larry David hosted Saturday Night Live for the second time last night and it was … not great. For instance, in the monologue, what should have been a fun stand-up routine by an experienced comedian ended up being an exercise in awkwardness as David bombed repeatedly before ending on a potentially offensive note. Though there were a few bright spots — Aidy Bryant’s Huckabee Sanders is coming into its own, for instance — late into the episode, my younger son wondered about a sketch: “is this as bad or worse than Larry David making concentration camp jokes?” — which pretty much sums up the night.

Not even the handful of Houston Astros who made an appearance in celebration of their World Series win could save the episode, seemingly wandering in as an afterthought, only to be manhandled by Leslie Jones. All in all, everyone deserved better.

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Kumail Nanjiani deserved better, ‘Saturday Night Live.’

by Therese Odell, posted in saturday night live: season 43

Saturday Night Live
“Kumail Nanjiani & Pink”
October 14, 2017

Oh, I wanted this episode to be better. I love Kumail Nanjiani as an actor and comedian and was hoping that his input on the show would lift what has been a lackluster season so far. For the most part, Kumail Nanjiani’s debut as Saturday Night Live host was fine, it was OK. Nanjiani himself was quite good and seemed perfectly comfortable working in a live format. But the writing left so much to be desired. Aside from a couple of sketches that were unexpectedly sweet and compassionate, the writing last night was all over the place — sometimes mediocre, other times just plain bad. And one bit left me very angry with everyone involved.

Very. Angry.

Also? Saturday Night Live? Maybe it’s time to hire more women on your writing staff. 8 women out of 32 writers seems embarrassingly low for 2017. (And 6 out of 16 players isn’t too hot, either.)

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‘Saturday Night Live’: Gal Gadot’s less-than-wonderful appearance

by Therese Odell, posted in saturday night live: season 43

Saturday Night Live
Gal Gadot & Sam Smith
October 8, 2017

Look, Gal Gadot is gorgeous. This is not about me being insanely jealous of her beauty or her ridiculous height — which I totally am. She is gorgeous and she is charming and she is a real honest-to-God badass. But, you guys, she was not good last night as host of Saturday Night Live. I don’t know if it was a function of her not being a native English speaker or not having much experience with comedy, but her timing was dreadful — and the only thing worse was her delivery.

It wasn’t entirely Gal Gadot’s fault that this episode wasn’t great, however. The writing felt underdeveloped in most places — which was frustrating because the ideas for the sketches themselves weren’t terrible, the writing just needed some editing. On the plus side, there were a lot of bits in last night’s episode, which means they kept the sketch length down and we didn’t have to endure any one half-baked sketch for too long.

Oh, and we’re one week closer to Kumail Nanjiani hosting, so there’s that.

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