Monday Morning Quarterback: SNL, Season 34, Episode 2

Posted by Jesse September 22nd, 2008 at 01:42pm In SNL

A common charge against Saturday Night Live is that its sketches go on too long, and that could certainly be selectively leveled against the James Franco episode. A mildly amusing (if deeply obvious) riff about “Agent 420″ seemed to go on forever, with two separate, elaborate sets employed for James Franco’s tuxedoed stoner. Occasionally, this level of detail is sort of funny in and of itself, but about eighty percent of the time, sketches with the most elaborate sketches are also the clunkiest of the night, which makes all of the effort even more dissonant.

But in recent years, for every overlong, overdesigned sketch, the show has been adept at bringing out several snappier, sillier bits. This week’s OJ Simpson jury-selection sketch could’ve been overlong and repetitive, but each juror’s bit cycled through within about thirty seconds:

The final sketch, with Willem Dafoe (Bill Hader) trying to goad Franco into killing Any Samberg, Green Goblin-style, was a perfectly executed throwaway, spoofing a familiar pop-culture moment without, you know, just plugging in a recurring character or something. In a similar vein, I enjoyed the goofiness of “The Looker,” which plugged Fred Armisen’s heretofore unknown talent for imitating Penny Marshall into a parody of The Closer. Even a relatively uninspired digital short, “Murray Hill,” was notable for its pitch-perfect approximation of bad teen-show dialogue in the first few minutes. As with “Space Olympics,” the Lonely Island crew really knows how to set up a gag even (or especially) if takes some extra time; in “Murray Hill,” that set-up was a lot funnier than the simplistic payoff.

So the show continues to excel at short-form, culture-based absurdities. But no one much talks about those bits; everyone (by which I mean the young, hip minority of viewers who create the illusion of the show’s main target audience) just wants to see the political stuff on blogs. In that area, the episode fell perversely short. As usual, the cold open was a political spoof, an amusing-enough bit with John McCain (Darrell Hammond) approving various slimy campaign ads aided by the most sarcastic political voiceover guy in the business (Bill Hader, naturally, who probably could’ve had an actual career as a voiceover artist). But that was it as far as sketches went, until that interminable New York Times sketch about effete Manhattan-dwellers who know nothing of Alaska. Will Forte’s polar-bear-related contributions made me chuckle, but the endlessly repeated central joke felt more like a sop to anyone who might’ve complained about the show’s relentless mockery of Sarah Palin last week (did anyone actually complain about this? Sub-question: why should we care if anyone did?). There must be funnier ways to rib the left — or even New York journalists, for that matter.

The writers still seem to be doling out political material at a deliberate pace — one to two sketches per week. I’m assuming this is due to the atypically grueling schedule that’s only just begun: four shows in a row, a week off, followed by another three in a row (typically the show does two in a row most months, and three in a row during sweeps), with several prime-time specials on Thursday nights throughout October; in short, there’s still plenty of airtime left. Even so, the paucity of election material so far is a little bizarre; the idea behind this SNL saturation was to get in as much material as possible before (a.) the election and/or (b.) Amy Poehler gives birth and leaves the show — which, judging by the end-of-show goodnights, should be sometime in the next fifteen to twenty minutes.

As far as the weekly variables, Franco was a serviceable host, though his cue-card-reading was at times approached Christopher Walken levels. Oh, and Kings of Leon were okay. I realized last week that I never commented on Lil Wayne, who was a bit better than I had assumed he’d be based entirely on his scary, scary appearance, and still kinda sounded a lot like everyone in his genre. Anyway, I’ll attempt to offer my amateur opinion on the musical guest from now on, because they’re often overlooked. From the outset, it looks like Season 34 probably can’t out-indie Season 33, where the strike-curtailed season resulted in a crazy percentage of the musical guests with some kind of indie cred (Feist, Spoon, Wilco, Vampire Weekend, Gnarls Barkley). But let’s all cross our fingers for a Jenny Lewis booking before 2008 is out.

Episode Grade: B-