So, after a nice relaxing summer free of the dreck that was SNL last season, I thought I was fully prepared to accept the show as is and be ready to potentially suffer through another bad year, but when you already have basement level expectations and the show fails to meet even those in its first episode of the season? Man, we could be in for a long year, people.
COLD OPEN: It starts off with Aidy (the new face of SNL apparently, as she was in nearly every sketch tonight despite lacking even a smidge of visible comedic talent) as Candy Crowley, interviewing Kenan and Jay as NFL players on the league's current crisis. Chris Pratt actually shows up here as the bumbling Roger Goodell, but the jokes fall flat and the whole thing sucks pretty bad. Not a good start.
MONOLOGUE: Chris Pratt bounds out to the surprisingly very muted announcement of his name. Seriously, Darrell Hammond, what the hell? You really want to start off your tenure as Don Pardo's replacement with a low, unenthusiastic cast reading and then barely even say Chris's name? I almost didn't hear it at all. Chris is fresh off his Guardians of the Galaxy success and pulls out a guitar for some Andy-style singing of a song he wrote, but he stumbles on it and it's not that funny (although it is cute to see his wife Ana Faris in the audience cheering him on).
TURNT: A mild ad for Cialis that turns people into Turnt, but Aidy ruins it again. I'm now officially renaming her Unfunny Aidy until she does something, anything that makes me laugh. Her rise to prominence is completely inexplicable, and it's crystal clear to me that behind the scenes of this very clique-y show she's simply made friends with all the right people. Congratulations to her on being very well-liked in person, I guess. Too bad it doesn't translate on screen AT ALL.
HE-MAN: Unfunny Aidy again as a mom whose kid Kyle makes a birthday wish that his toys come to life. Chris and Taran are now life size He-Man and Lionel, but there's no joke that works at all, and it's just setup for Unfunny Aidy to do her lone "horny lady" character at the end. What's really odd in this one is the way it just ends, with people literally exiting the stage with no last joke or punchline. Uh-oh. That's a bad sign- it means the writers literally have no idea how to end their sketches and have given up even trying. Yikes. Remember guys, this is the season premiere and it's all they came up with.
VET HOSPITAL: An inexplicably recurring sketch that has never and will never be funny unless a person in it says or does anything humorous. That has to happen for anything to work, you know. The whole "your pet is dead thing" isn't funny once, let alone being the single joke repeated ten times.
ANT-MAN TRAILER: A fake trailer that basically takes shots at Marvel for being able to put out a movie based around inanimate objects and have it make a billion dollars. Is that a subtle dig at the quality of Guardians? If it is, it could have been more pointed.
WEEKEND UPDATE: Now, here's where I was genuinely curious as to how Michael Che, formerly of The Daily Show, was going to come across in his debut as co-anchor. I'm sorry to say not well. He's nervous and stumbles over several punchlines, seeming to bring no spark or special delivery of any kind to the format. I wouldn't go so far as to say he makes Colin look good (that's sort of impossible), but I am puzzled as to why he was hired specifically for this if he wasn't going to reinvent the gig somehow. I'll give him a few more weeks to settle in of course, but I'm not impressed. Guests include Cecily's Girl at a Party thing (which by the way, is simply an unfunny version of Drunk Uncle), and writer Leslie Jones again, bringing her bombastic delivery (although, why is she making appearances? If they want her to be on the show, shouldn't they, you know, put her ON the show?). The only bright spot here is the introduction of the one new cast member Pete Davidson, who comes on and essentially does a quick stand-up bit, but he's so immediately confident and what's this- actually funny, that it does make you sit up and take notice. It's over fairly quickly, but this new guy may be someone to watch out for.
GIRL'S NIGHT: Unfunny Aidy (who else?) is at a bar sing-flirting with Chris. It's boring, lame and the actual talented people in this cast (Kate, Bobby, Taran) are all being wasted so that Unfunny Aidy and her horny lady shenanigans can go on hogging all the screen time. UGH.
MAXIE: Terrific! The Kyle/Beck pre-taped oddball humor bits are back! I'm being sarcastic of course. The thing about their little pair-ups is that they are so far out of the wheelhouse of the show's usual style that it clashes, which wouldn't necessarily be bad if they were actually amusing. But no. They don't work on their own either. Chris joining a gang of ten year old's is horrible and way too long. No laughs.
NFL ON CBS: Finally, something halfway decent, although I wonder if it's just magnified by how awful the rest of the night has been. Every male cast member takes a turn as a football player who now has to state their name and crime in the lineup. It gets couple of good chuckles, which is SUCH a relief at this point.
PUZZLE WORLD 6: Less painful than much of what was on the first half of the show, but not great either. Game testers are appalled by Chris and Vanessa's relationship drama on the latest edition of a video game. Meh. It's really sad that this is something that should have been in the front half.
So that's it for tonight, and man was it brutal. There were at least two skits that didn't even have endings, lots of stumbling over the cue cards, Darrell Hammond's utterly underwhelming debut, the inexplicable rise of Unfunny Aidy, a Weekend Update team that seems to have no chemistry whatsoever...I'm not optimistic, guys. Maybe this Pete Davidson dude can break out, but if he's that good, we're going to know it very soon with this cast. I give tonight a D-, but I do kind of think that's being generous. We'll see how it goes next week when Sarah Silverman takes the stage. Until then, Happy 40th anniversary to Saturday Night Live- let's hope there are some rays of sunlight in this milestone year somewhere.
