Congratulations SNL. You made me dish out the very first F I've ever given you guys. No more passes, people. The writing sucks, the sketches are awful, and this was a painful prison sentence to sit through tonight. You need to do some serious work.
COLD OPEN: Kenan is Al Sharpton on MSNBC to cover the Eric Garner grand jury decision, but it's not as funny as usual (or maybe only the first time ever he did it). It's actually pretty boring, and the one joke, that Al Sharpton can't read a teleprompter, has gotten stale.
MONOLOGUE: James Franco (with a newly shaved head) does a very short bit about the Sony hacking, and buddy Seth Rogen comes out to join him in making fun of their leaked 'nude photos' together. Meh. What's weird is how short the monologue is here.
PETER PAN: God. Awful. What should have been a super easy parody of NBC's weak Peter Pan Live production turns into a bit for Unfunny Aidy's 'Tonker Bell' character, which has never made anyone laugh, ever. Add to that James's pretty bad Christopher Walken impression and this is a dire sketch indeed.
STAR WARS: A spoof of the new Star Wars teaser, but it basically makes fun of the fact that the original characters are all old now, with Taran's Harrison Ford showcased. It's mediocre but short at least.
MTV JINGLE BALLERZ: A skit for celebrity impressions doing Christmas raps, basically. No one's particularly impressive in this, but the worst part is that we only get five seconds of Kate's awesome Justin Bieber. How do the people running this show not value her more, and seem unable to recognize her best stuff? That continues to baffle me.
GROW A GUY: A pre-taped bit from Mike O'Brien of all people (who was demoted from cast member to writer only last year), who comes back to do an odd sketch about a guy with no friends who grows a pod person (James). I don't know. I didn't laugh really, but I've never gotten his humor.
TROLL: Wow. Seriously one of the worst sketches I think the show has ever done. I don't even know what to say about it. James is a troll under a bridge and Cecily is his weird old lady friend- this thing is just dead in the water and it goes on SO long! WTF? How the hell did this get into the top of the show?
UPDATE: Another cringeworthy Update from the wonderless and chemistry free duo that is Colin and Michael. They go on for quite a bit with a rant over the Garner decision, but it's extremely awkward with the non-rapport between the two guys (especially over an issue like this). And frankly, the audience wasn't having it either, remaining noticeably quiet during this thing. As for guests, Bobby's Anthony comes back for secondhand news (a couple good lines), but Leslie Jones is also back for more stand-up (which I simply can't stand). Then Nicky Minaj comes on as Kim Kardashian but the punchlines are horrible. Damn. What a disaster this show has become.
JEREMY'S BRAIN: A sketch about clearing old thoughts out of 20 year old Pete's brain- which means this is nothing but a setup for 1990's nostalgia. They do realize when they do this that there's no actual joke about these references, right? We all remember them, but what's supposed to be funny about it?
SMALL TOWN MAYOR: A political ad that has James running against a 4-year-old mayor and yelling at the TV. I'm in such a bad mood at this point that I can't even foster much interest. It's lame.
PORN STARS: So, ordinarily this would be one of the better things of any show, but this one has gotten to the point where's they've overused it. I liked it at first, but now it's totally predictable and repetitive. Time to retire it, guys.
Well, that was a chore. The sketches were both bad and painful tonight, so I've got to give it an F. I'm pretty sure that's the first one I've ever bestowed, despite how terrible some of the recent episodes have been, but this show is in utter crisis mode right now. And frankly, the fact that Update is so bad is making everything worse- even in the Seth Meyers years, the center of the show could more or less be counted on to deliver, but when it's this far gone it's time to retool. Try Beck Bennett out, Lorne. Please, give him a shot. He seems suited to it, you can certainly afford to lose him in the sketches, and I have a hard time imagining he'd be worse than what you've got now. Come back next week for Martin Freeman's first hosting stint (with an appearance from Cumberbatch, perhaps?). See you then.
