Christina Applegate did a fine job as the show's host. But unfortunately, she was saddled with mostly weak material.
The opening debate sketch was very good. Once again, Jason Sudeikis was hilarious as Joe Biden. His delivery was great and he had some very good lines. Taran Killam did fine as Paul Ryan; and his facial reactions and mannerisms were very funny. Kate McKinnon did a good job and she gave a very energetic LFNY. Very good opening.
Christina Applegate's monologue was fun. I liked her song about how this time of the year is the calm before the storm that is Thanksgiving and Halloween. The idea of the Muppet knock-offs were very funny and Jason Sudeikis' impression of Comedian Dane Cook was very amusing. Christina Applegate did a very good job; as her performance was very funny and energetic. Very good monologue tonight.
I have nothing to say about The Californians. Once again, the sketch basically consisted of jokes too similar to those present in the previous two installments. Christina Applegate tried the best she could with the material; but the sketch was boggled down by bad writing and overstated performances Fred Armisen and some of the other castmembers. Not a great sketch at all.
"Tech Talk" could have been a very good sketch; as the premise about quibbles with the latest I-Phone could have been funny on its own. Unfortunately, the main joke of the sketch turned out to be making fun of Japanese accents and portraying caricatures. The sketch basically made fun the way Japanese people speak; and I consider that to be a very cheap and desperate way to get laughs from the audience. As said before with The Californians, this was not a great sketch at all.
"Weekend Update" also proved to not be very funny. Aside from two or three of Seth Meyers' jokes, nothing made me laugh. Nasim Pedrad's impression of Ariana Huffington just dragged and strongly lacked comedy. kenan Thompson's performance as his character "Jean k. Jean" wasn't hilarious either; and the writing wasn't inspired at all. Both Pedrad and Thompson weren't hilarious and their performances just came off as one-dimensional and tedious. Not a great "Weekend Update" at all.
The Greek Myths sketch could have been better. The voyagers being seduced by the sirens' crooning of popular tunes of the late 90s' wasn't entirely hilarious and the joke got a bit old. I will say that all the performances were good; especially Jason Sudeikis.' it was obvious that he was having fun during the sketch and his lines were very hilarious. As I said at the start of my live-blogging coverage, SNL is going to suffer a major loss when he leaves at some point during the season.
I liked seeing Jay Pharoah's principal character again. Pharoah has become a better comic performer and I'm happy to see him get more to do. Christina Applegate was funny as her character; and Kenan Thompson was alright. The writing was decent; but, in all honesty, the jokes involving Applegate's character got slightly predictable. But, once again, the performances of Applegate and Pharoah were pretty good.
The final sketch of the night, which involved Christina Applegate as a dance instructor, dragged a lot and suffered greatly from weak writing. Christina Applegate did the best she could to save the piece; but unfortunately, not much could be done to do so. The jokes were all repetitive and the jokes were predictable. A very weak way to close the show.
I will say that I did like the commercial spoof from earlier in the show that were making fun of the promos for "Taken 2" and "The Expandables 2." All the performers' exhibited great impressions and I liked seeing the trailers for these types of being spoofed. These movie trailer spoofs that SNL has been doing this season are very funny and they are becoming a good replacement for the Digital Shorts; which have ended now that Andy Samberg has left the show.
I will also say that Passion Pit were a good musical guest. While their first song was a tad light for my taste, their second performance was much more lively and more fun. In fact, the lead singer's voice during the second song sounded much better and more engaging than the first performance.
And that's it. Christina Applegate did a fine job tonight; but she was stuck with sketches that dragged and suffered from repetitive jokes and predictable scenarios. Those factors are greatly affecting the quality of SNL and I truly hope the writers get their act together for the rest of the season.
However, no matter what, I'm not very excited about next week's show. Musician Bruno Mars is going to be serving double duty as both the show's host and musical guest. I've never seen Bruno Mars act or partake in any interviews; so I have no idea how he'll do. In addition, I'm not a big fan of his music as the songs I have heard from him tend to have lyrics that are either too redundant or too flavorless.
And that concludes my live-blogging coverage for tonight's episode of "Saturday Night Live." Thank you all for following me and I look forward to posting my next big article sometime this week.
Thank you again and Good Night Everybody!
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