I realize that Saturday Night Live probably spends a lot of time in a “transitional” phase, especially considering that since the mid-nineties there hasn’t been the kind of cast shake-up that used to occur about every five or six years. Since the 1995 overhaul that introduced Will Ferrell, Molly Shannon, Cheri Oteri, and Darrell Hammond, among others, cast changes have been more gradual. A near-complete turnover from that cast didn’t really happen until 2003, when Ferrell and Chris Kattan left in quick succession, still leaving Darrell Hammond, and cast members added between ’95 and ’00 were still going strong in 2005 when Bill Hader, Andy Samberg, Jason Sudeikis, and Kristen Wiig jumped on. Since then, new cast members have seemed minor, performing in the shadow of still-popular mid-decade additions.

That said, the Amy Poehler-hosted season opener of SNL seemed like a particularly transitional episode. Newcomer Jenny Slate is gone, as is long-timer Will Forte, while Nasim Pedrad, Abby Elliott, and Bobby Moynihan receive promotions and aging cast members Fred Armisen and Kenan Thompson remain, at seasons eight and seven, respectively. Four new cast members have been added, perhaps in expectation that Armisen, Thompson, and even some of the 2005 crew may be departing soon.

To confuse matters further, relatively recent cast departure Poehler returned to host and brought cameos from Tina Fey, Jimmy Fallon, Rachel Dratch, and Maya Rudolph. No one in the actual cast appeared in the first post-monologue sketch, with Poehler and Rudolph reviving Bronx Beat, a sketch that seems like it’s been revived as often as it was actually done when both women were cast members, with Katy Perry playing the busty guest, in a mildly clever nod to her Sesame Street ban.

Bronx Beat as a whole is not the most inspired first sketch of a new season, but it’s enjoyable to watch simply for how well Poehler and Rudolph know these characters, and how much of the humor is in pure dialogue and delivery, not “funny” behavior. As far as revived Poehler characters, I prefer the petulant one-legged cretin Amber, brought back as a character on a Showtime series — a funny premise, though it wasn’t the most hilarious Amber outing.

That applies to most of the material on Saturday’s premiere: pretty amusing, rarely the best example of its form. Bronx Beat and Amber provided okay recurring characters (not so much with Fred Armisen’s surly old guy producer character; funny on paper, less so in repeated sketches); the Digital Short was suitably bizarre but not top-tier; the fake ads for pubic hair transplants and The Even More Expendables were good enough shots at east targets; the “tiny hats” bit was funny and weird, but not on the level of, say, last year’s potato chip sketch.

The best material was quick: an ad for the “Ground Zero Mosque” merrily trumpeting gay weddings and more, revealed to be Republican fear-mongering; and “Actor II Actor” with Andy Samberg screaming at Justin Timberlake (another cameo!) about getting back to music. Oh, and Poehler’s monologue with all of those cameos was funny, but then, Poehler, Dratch, Fey, and Fallon tend to be pretty funny together. Update, as usual, was quite good, and newcomer Jay Pharoah did a killer Will Smith impression. (He has an Obama impression too! Please, please let him use it! Far better impressions than Armisen’s have been unceremoniously retired!)

So: a mostly funny episode, but with sort of a clearinghouse feel; it would’ve felt better as a mid-season break — bring in Poehler and her buddies to do some heavy lifting while the regular cast rests. Instead, we’re left waiting to figure out how this new mutation of the cast will gel.

But hey, if you want to hear some alarmist silliness combined with some awful, awful advice, Flavorwire is there for you!

Grade: B-

Kristin Cavallari in what I can only assume is Europe.

Hey, you guys, The Hills is over! Related question: do you remember The Hills? It was insanely popular sometime in, oh, let’s say, 2007 maybe? I’m not quite sure. I know that Tifaux’s very own Cristin used to write hilariously detailed Hills recaps, and that sometime after I moved in with Tifaux’s very own Marisa, I got acclimated to the white noise of The Hills and began to find it weirdly soothing. Which is a pansy of saying I have seen at least the last three seasons of The Hills. And, for that matter, almost every episode of its spin-off, The City.

But clearly I came into the fake-cinematic-reality genre on the downward slide. Far fewer people seemed to care about The Hills in its last few years, as professional passive-aggressive blank slate Lauren Conrad left and aggressive-aggressive-yet-still-kind-of-passive Kristin Cavallari stormed back in with no mention of the limp acting gigs she was unable to string into a career following the demise of Hills originator Laguna Beach. This can only be healthy for the country. It’s difficult, anyway, to care about what happens on The Hills because anyone who watches the show knows that nothing happens on The Hills, which is all the more hilariously apparent when the show tries to sum things up for a season or, gulp, series finale. Case in point: when something started happening with Heidi and Spencer, the show averted its eyes: possible story! It turns! Now we’ll never know if Spencer was able to re-form the Dark Crystal and save the gelfling race!

For a show that’s clearly shaped in the editing room, it’s odd how often The Hills decides on its story arcs retroactively — not just after the faux-events “happen,” but well after episodes have aired. Which is how, in the twilight of its existence, the show sort of decided that it was about Kristin putting her heart out there and taking a wild chance on a guy she already dated in high school and presumably continued to fuck a bunch of times since then. Yes, The Hills decided it was basically a Kristin/Brody rom-com-dram, oh and also about the whole gang growing up.

And in case you’re skeptical about the maturation capabilities of the type of twenty-three-year-olds who go on “spring break” without ever enrolling in college, check out those milestones: Audrina moved for the tenth time in two years, Lo manipulated her boyfriend into an early marriage pre-proposal, and Stephanie went on a second date. Slow down, there, Stephanie; if you’re not careful, you could wind up with a job, or a conversation with any content whatsoever.

Speaking of not speaking: the show also retroactively decided that Kristin, Audrina, Stephanie, and Lo all like each other at all. This used to be vaguely more plausible when Lauren was around, not because Lauren seemed remotely interesting, but because I could buy that one of those people was somehow friends with Lauren (introduced by their mutual friend, the casting agent). But: Kristin, Audrina, Stephanie, Lo. None of these people are friends with each other. None of them even like each other. And yet there they were on the last episode, catching up in someone’s living room. Conversations on The Hills always sound prompted, of course, but these particular girls sitting on couches discussing their lives straight up plays like a talk show: The View without opinions. The No Views.

Somewhere along the line, Kristin, who has been spurned by Brody for a suspiciously unseen harlot (most suspicious: the idea that Brody would date someone who doesn’t want to be on TV), decides she needs to find herself. Stacie the bartender gets right to the point: “Where would you go?” My thoughts exactly, Stacie, and I must point out that Kristin does not answer with the first thing that pop into her head, because she does not say “beach,” “Brody,” or some kind of made-up place based on her favorite word, “done,” like “Donesville,” “Donetown,” or “SOdonesburg.” She does, however, say “Europe” in a way that suggests she is repeating something she saw on another TV show, and leaves it at that for the rest of the episode. Yes, she’s rich enough to move to Europe for spite.

Meanwhile, Brody and perpetual birthday boy Frankie (seriously, doesn’t it seem like they all go to a birthday party for Frankie like three times a year? While simultaneously avoiding so much as eye contact with him?) and the other bros play golf; just in time for the final episode, they complete their quest to participate in every single douche-y looking bro activity ever created. It’s a good thing The Hills is ending; otherwise, someone would have to invent some kind of new douchetastic boring fake sport for Brody and the boys to half-play while wearing ugly hats and chatting about who Brody is putting the blocks to. I think this sport would maybe involve driving four-wheelers around artificial sand dunes while wearing lacrosse jerseys.

Kristin’s new life plan continues. Here’s the plan: 1. Decide you’re going to Europe. 2. Tell everyone you’re going to Europe. 3. Go to ex-boyfriend’s house 4. Tell him you’re going to Europe. 5. Plan a goodbye party. 6. Invite ex-boyfriend. 7. Wait for him to arrive. 8. Talk about leaving some more. 9. Find out what “Europe” is. Do they have another language or something? Every time Kristin mentioned “Europe” and “leaving” without seeming to make any actual plans beyond the goodbye party that looks like every other party everyone on this show attends, I thought: guys, I think someone should check Europe after Kristin leaves. Just to see. If you can’t find her, return to greater Los Angeles, go around to any restaurants that don’t care if you order any food, and that’s a bingo.

Everyone else spends the episode reflecting on how far they’ve come and what might “happen” to them in the future (no one on The Hills does anything; stuff just happens!). People on this show reflect almost as often as they leave restaurants without ordering anything. They’re also rich, which I’m pretty sure makes The Hills sort of like if Sofia Coppola directed a commercial for being the worst person in the world. (“Lost in Translation” was actually the title of the season and/or series finale of The City — you know, that other fake reality show, the one where almost everyone as a job).

But let’s try to stay positive: Lo has looked so content this season! This may have less to do with her stable and loving relationship and more to do with, in the absence of Lauren or Heidi, other characters asking Lo for advice. This represents a stark change from earlier seasons, during which I made a game of finding moments where anyone actually spoke directly to Lo, and wondered if perhaps she had died shortly after Laguna Beach and continued on as a ghost.

Anyway, Kristin moves to Europe, by which I mean: has a goodbye party. Brody shows up and asks her not to leave. Then he shows up again the next morning, before she “leaves.” But then the camera pulls back to reveal a backlot! And Kristin’s fake car ride stopping! And Kristin getting out to hug Brody! Could it be?! Is Kristin Cavallari not actually moving to Europe?!

I’m sure the show intended this to be a cheeky, ambiguous nod to the slippery nature of reality television, but I pretty much just pictured Kristin getting into the towncar, asking to go to Europe, and getting pissed off when the driver asked one of any number of follow-up questions. So she told him to stop the car, she’d just go bone Brody instead. Regardless: the show left as ephemerally as it aired, with a weightless retroactive question to consider: was this show exactly as fake as everyone thought? Or was it two percent more fake than that? If this episode didn’t provide a sufficient answer, well, then maybe they can revive the franchise with a new show called The Europe.

Good news, everyone! My grumpiness over Seth MacFarlane’s dominance in the world of animated sitcoms has slightly subsided! This has happened not because I suddenly find any of his shows particularly funny, but because the universe just got one or two iotas less hilariously cruel, although several iotas more hilarious overall: Futurama is returning to air! Even if you’re not a superfan, you can catch up on what you’ve missed with the above recap video from Comedy Central.

I must begrudgingly admit that we have Family Guy to thank for this. That show’s unholy resurrection after strong Cartoon Network rerun ratings encouraged Fox to invest in a series of Futurama DVD movies, which were also broken up into a sixteen-episode fifth season of the show for Comedy Central, long after it went off the air in 2003 (which itself was awhile after it had ceased production). The success, in turn, of those DVDs, combined with the continuing fragmentation of the TV landscape, convinced Fox to produce another batch of genuine episodes for Comedy Central. Thirteen will air this year, and thirteen in 2011, with the possibility for more down the road, but let’s not get greedy.

I’m not one of those people who disavows any Simpsons episodes made after 1998 (or, even more frightening, 1995, or 1992! These people exist and they are really depressing!). However, I don’t think there’s any question that for the years Futurama aired (1999-2003), it was superior to the then-current Simpsons episodes. The sum total Futurama may not be as majestic as Seasons Three through Nine of The Simpsons, which as far as I’m concerned represents one of mankind’s more impressive achievements, but it is better than seventy-some episodes of just about anything else save maybe Seinfeld.

In celebration of the return of one of the best shows of the past decade or six, Marisa and I have been systematically watching every episode of Futurama ever produced; we’re concluding this evening with the final DVD movie, Into the Wild Green Yonder, and going straight into the two new episodes airing at 10PM on Comedy Central. This nerd download has put me in a good position to count down the top seven episodes of Futurama. There were only seventy-two episodes in the original run, and the movies are sort of a different beast, so I’m keeping it to the top ten percent (but for the record, The Beast with a Billion Backs is probably my favorite of the four DVD experiments). Into the breach, meatbags:

So, super-surprising mega-spoiler alert: Lost is over, and a bunch of the internet is mad, but that was almost certainly going to be the case, unless the show really had been planned out step-by-step when it first premiered back in 2004, which would’ve been nearly impossible. I do have some problems with the sometimes haphazard way in which Carlton Cuse and Damon Lindelof seemed to go about managing their creation — the way they insisted they had an end point in mind, complained about the difficulties of planning an open-ended serial, negotiated for their own end date, then nonetheless brushed off some subplots due to time constraints that they helped bring about, and then seemed to backpedal a bit on the “we’ve been planning this out the whole time” angle.

But those aren’t really problems within the body of the show, which came to a satisfactory, at times excellent, conclusion last night. Honestly, making a series finale is a pretty thankless task. If people are talking about it, it’s usually because a good portion of the audience is saying that it’s crap. If you make a really terrific one — I’d put “Chosen,” the series finale of Buffy, up with the show’s best episodes ever — no one pays all that much attention.

Lost tried to thread the nerd-expectation needle with a balance between fantastical island action and emotional character connections, and, indeed, the central debate between those pleased with the finale and those who are ready to slog off the whole series as a waste of time seems to be whether the focus on the characters is more or less important than the mythology and mystery elements. I can certainly identify with that conflict; for the first few seasons of the show, I maintained that my problems with it had to do with the creators thinking it was about the emotional and character-based components, even though the most original and interesting aspect was the sci-fi/fantasy/mystery storytelling. In other words, no, sorry, I don’t care that much about Sun and Jin as people; I care about what they’re doing on this crazy island.

I can’t say that I’ve completely come around to the character side of things — I’m just not as attached to the Losties as I was to characters in, say, Buffy and her friends or even Mulder and Scully — but, oddly, when the show kicked into trippier sci-fi elements in the fourth and fifth seasons, and started moving at a faster pace, I also found myself more invested in the characters, because even the less essential later episodes didn’t sink to the feelings of time-killing you got in sections of the first three seasons. That is to say that I may not have been most interested in everyone’s character development, but the show did a better job of making that development not come off like downtime. (Or maybe I’m just happier whenever a show adds time-travel into the mix.) So I’ve at least accepted that yeah, the creators are more into the emotional character-arc stuff, some of which is great and some of which is sketchy, but OK, they’ve given us enough fun sci-fi trippiness so that strict, definite answers wouldn’t necessarily make the show any better.

Anyway: so everyone is dead! But not necessarily in a bad way. Actually, in kind of an amazing way. We were left to assume that the flash-sideways world was time-travel related, and it wasn’t (OK, a little bit of a bummer), and/or that it could be some kind of postscript to the series, and it wasn’t (OK, a little bit of a bummer that everyone is still dead, but pleasing that they didn’t issue a bunch of get-out-of-death-free cards) — but the way they handled the flash-sideways afterlife actually indulged in a little of each of those angles. There was sort of a spiritual time-travel going on, the way that some of those characters died way before Jack, and others way after, yet all came together in a single all-time point, and it offers an epilogue to their lives in a way sort of reminiscent of the Six Feet Under finale (which, I admit, I haven’t seen, but I read about it. That and the Sorpanos finale: episodes I haven’t actually seen, but sound completely awesome).

So the revelation about the sideways world was a nice one, and not, to my mind, a cheat, even if it does play right into Lost‘s tendency to get all soppy and slow-mo with the togetherness. But this time it worked; it wasn’t just a time-killing slow-mo sequence of everyone boarding a plane again (I’ll grudgingly admit there was a symmetry in that church sequence that would not have been present without all of that past plane-boarding, but still, never my favorite moments of the show).

The easy complaint is that the show wound up going the purgatory route that everyone guessed in the first year and which Cuse, Lindelof, and Abrams insisted wasn’t the solution. But of course, the island itself wasn’t purgatory — even the sideways universe wasn’t exactly purgatory, but rather that spiritual time-space convergence. Still, no Lost fan could watch the resolution without thinking of those early purgatory guesses, and I’m sure that “so it turned out it was basically purgatory, ugh” will become a whiny meme.

The afterlife turn, and several repeated shots and self-referential lines of dialogue, made for a surprisingly meta final episode, which added some fun (Hurley’s “I have a bad feeling about this,” Sawyer’s joke about Kate following after him) to a pretty dire situation. Also fun: watching a trio of later cast additions, the kind of characters that are killed off all the time on the show, actually survive: Lapidus! Miles! Richard! Flying to safety! I mean, yes, they brought along Sawyer, Kate, and Claire at the last minute, but I really liked the way they accomplished this primarily by breaking away from the major characters and just trying to get themselves the hell out of there. Lapidus even got a petulant “leave me alone!” while the main characters yelled from the walkie-talkie. In a season that provided all manner of hilarious ideas for spin-offs via the sideways universe, it was fitting that the last episode would add in some tantalizing non-sideways possibilities: Hurley and Ben, Island Administrators! Lapidus, Miles, and Richard, super-mismatched trio flying ’round the world!

I did have some problems with the finale. Desmond came back into this season with a bang, and his role turned out to be disappointingly minor: passive in the island world, and receding in favor of Jack’s story in the flashpurgatorium. He basically lacked a single awesome moment here, which was kind of a problem considering how much build-up his presence received. I mean, we got to see the tearful flash-reunion of Sayid and Shannon, but not Desmond and Penny. That’s kind of messed up considering that probably at least a third of the audience would be more likely to go “What the fuck? Oh, right, Sayid and Shannon, yeah, I guess they were a thing” rather than, you know, the intended “awww” (I would’ve been way happier with Shannon and Boone having a touching moment where they remembered how they boned that time).

Also, some of the on-island action felt a little perfunctory, even with an epic Fake Locke/Jack battle strangely reminiscent of a sequence from The Matrix Revolutions, a movie I’m pretty sure no one but me actually likes (I was going to say that made sense if it was originally conceived in 2004, but actually, no, even in 2004 it would be weird to conceive anything to look like Matrix Revolutions). I’m not sure it makes sense to describe the island as a metaphorical cork, and then have it turn out to contain basically an actual cork. In fact, that seems sort of confusing. But, as I hoped, the series managed to sidestep the “good versus evil” idea. I mean, yeah, Fake Locke was pretty rotten, and the new Jacobs are obviously pretty solidly good, but Hurley and Ben don’t seem particularly inclined to follow the Jacob administration’s approach to island governance; it sounds like they’ll be focused on helping people find their way home, which honestly, even if there wasn’t a larger mission, I don’t think Jacob would’ve done. I just don’t like that dude.

So yeah, I thought it was a pretty solid, slightly uneven end to a pretty solid, slightly uneven show, with some really lovely moments of direction from series regular Jack Bender, and touching character moments for most of our core castaways: Jack, Sawyer, Kate, Hurley, and Ben all had a wealth of good moments (or in Ben’s case, good fortune: anyone else catch how Ben got out from under that tree towards the end? I didn’t think much about it, but a friend pointed it out and now it seems really weird that they weren’t able to lift the tree, but he somehow escaped, and also didn’t seem to have shattered any bones under it). There was resolution with some ambiguity. There was spiritual stuff but it wasn’t too hokey. Hurley said “dude” a bunch of times and we saw Vincent. Good show. What did you guys think? And what am I going to watch now?

I’m not sure if it’s awesome or kind of bizarre that the most delightful aspects of last night’s Lost came from the alterna-world rather than the “real” island action. Sure, there were plenty of doings a-transpirin’ on the island in 2007 (or whenever it is “now”); the story moved forward, there were at least two deaths, and Jack assumed the role he’s been training for all season as Jacob’s replacement, the island protector. All in all, lots of exciting scene-setting for the now solidly feature-length series finale on Sunday.

But what I really loved in “What They Died For” were the alt-2004 moments, mostly trading on our affection for familiar Lost characters and situations, and cashing in for a lot of poignancy and hilariousness. I loved Desmond waiting in the parking lot at Locke and Ben’s school, revving his engine to run Locke over one more time; I loved it even more when sneaky, slimy Ben defended Locke with such earnestness, and then, after getting his ass kicked, as happens in any of Ben’s realities, going on sort of a surprise family date with Alex and her mom — hey, a non-crazy Rousseau! Well, mostly non-crazy; she did seem just about ready to marry Ben after spending a couple of hours with him and his sexy (?) bug eyes.

Back in 2007, Ben’s sneakiness got a second or third or tenth wind; I loved the weirdly quaint image of him sitting on his little porch, waiting for the Smoke Monster that he now realizes he wasn’t so much summoning with his secret room as inadvertently cooperating with Smokey’s destructive plan. Now, I guess he figures, might as well actively cooperate, and if his enemies die in the process, all the better. His chilling follow-up question after shooting Widmore — who else are we going to kill? — could be a particularly convincing ruse (again, with the side benefit of vengeance against Widmore), or it could be a pledge of actual allegiance. One of the most fascinating aspects of Ben is his refusal to be redeemed — if his (non-alt) character does have some redemption, it’s almost incidental. Even in the endgame, he’s still angling to get what he wants, even if he doesn’t seem entirely sure of what he wants (that he’d still like Penny to die is almost as chilling as the idea that, well, Penny could die, although the writers have to know the wrath they’d engage if that happened).

So yeah, heavy stuff in 2007; excitingly silly stuff in 2004, with Desmond’s Zen prison break, aided by the corrupt Ana-Lucia (not ready yet to get punched into letting go), bringing most of the important cast members to an awesome Faraday-led classical-meets-rock concert, a concept as ambitious and dorkily prog-sounding as Lost itself. It’s kind of a neat trick, the way the writers have let us enjoy rebooted versions of these alt-characters, including (more than) a wink and a nod to the early days as Jack and Locke once again arrive at a (more benevolent) discussion of science and faith, as death and despair and mystical baptisms reign in the 2007 version of their lives.

Oh, and of course the writers can’t stop raising questions; I can’t decide if this is a sign of good storytelling or just bad habits. New (or newly revived) questions from this episode include: how is Desmond going to serve as a failsafe? Who is Jack’s ex-wife in alt-2004 (probably Juliet, right?)? How long will Jack last as protector? How can you kill a Smoke Monster? Is Ben back to his evil ways, or is he doing a long-con on Smokey? Were Richard and/or Lapidus actually given ignominious semi-off-screen deaths, or are they being saved for later? I was ready to guess the latter for Lapidus, but now, I don’t know, it looks suspiciously like house-cleaning. Again, it’s hard to tell if this is shrewd storytelling or not until we get a look at that finale thing.

Basically, this episode was a lot of fun given that it was occupying the standard piece-moving and set-up-heavy penultimate-episode slot, times a million since it leads into the series, not just season, finale. Episodes like this, enjoyable as they are, make me wonder why the producers wanted to set an end when they did. That is, the last three seasons of Lost have been shorter runs designed to stretch two seasons and change worth of episodes across three seasons to satisfy ABC while not spreading the show too thin. But in retrospect, it seems like they could’ve used the extra ten or fifteen episodes that could’ve come with full-season orders. Then again, maybe the faster pace of seasons four and five would’ve been sacrificed. Maybe it’s just this season didn’t have quite the time/plot management skills I would’ve liked to see, even with a lot of entertaining installments.

I was going to do a list of best and worst Lost characters, but that seemed a bit redundant, as producers have essentially composed their own list consisting of who’s been left alive going into the finale. But maybe I’ll throw that into my finale recap on Monday morning, if the internet hasn’t broken by then.

Your thoughts, as always, are welcome below.

For a nerd like me, Alec Baldwin hosting SNL, as routine an occurrence as it’s become (and sustained, thanks to the cross-promotional opportunities with 30 Rock), is far more exciting than Betty White doing it. So it’s with a heavy heart that I report that Baldwin’s episode wasn’t much better than White’s; it just wasn’t as overhyped.

Of course, while White’s episode suffered from multiple sketches essentially hitting the same joke (old lady talkin’ saucy!), the many one-joke sketches of Baldwin’s record-tying fifteenth hosting gig at least provided a variety of single jokes. Some of them worked beautifully, like the escalating absurdity of an infomercial for the Timecrowave, a food-heating device that can also wreak havoc on the space-time continuum, or the extremely, hilariously length set-up in the old movie clip about Baldwin reforming a prostitute (or rather, pretending to, and then trying to get a handjob). Others half-worked, like Baldwin as a belligerent swim coach, berating his young charges one by one; and another kinda felt flat, like the sniper sketch where the single joke was Baldwin saying “take the shot!” semi-comprehensibly. The majority, then, fell somewhere between middling and quite good, which is a pretty good track record for these types of sketches.

The one-joke indulgences can come crashing down, though, when you barely have any idea what that joke is supposed to be. In the worst sketch of the night and possibly of 2010 so far, Kristen Wiig debuts a delightful new character named Starfish. Get this: she’s awkward and clueless, and talks weird! If that sounds too much like other Kristen Wiig characters, how about this: she also has buck teeth! And if that doesn’t sound enough like eighty other SNL sketches since the beginning of time, don’t worry: the premise is that she keeps ruining takes on a set and the director has to keep yelling “cut” — a structure inexplicably beloved by comedy writers. I cannot remember the last time this device was funny and would love any recollections about when this was in the comments section below.

In the meantime: Jesus, that sketch was really, really bad. And it was the first real in-show sketch of the night! And it ruined a perfectly rhythm set up by an amusing (and quick!) non-Obama cold open, a typically smooth Baldwin monologue with a Steve Martin cameo, and a hilarious Digital Short going more Broadway than fake rap. Well done, SNL writers: your treatment of Kristen Wiig can officially be called enabling, bordering on self-destructive.

I suppose I should be happy that the only recurring characters of the night were those that haven’t nearly worn out their welcome (Nasrim Pedrad’s mature fourteen-year-old Bedilia; Bill Hader’s mouth-covering club expert Stefon) or those that consistently display a degree of infectious joy in their performance (Kenan’s old-man sexpert Grady Wilson; Wiig and Armisen as underprepared musical duo Garth and Kat), and that Wiig tried out a new character instead of trotting out Penelope, the Target Lady, or the chick who ruins surprises. But boy, did that sketch leave a bad taste in my mouth.

Among the peaks represented by Timecrowave and the valleys represented by Starfish, we had pretty much the entire season: some brilliant invention, some passable one-joke material, a musical guest that doesn’t inspire me to say much, and a dash of awful hackery. In short, Baldwin hosted Saturday Night Live in 2010, and it was okay. I’ll try to put up a season-in-review later this week, but for now, this episode’s grade sort of suffices in that department.

Episode Grade: B-

In a sense, even though it took a complete break from the typical format of the show in the style of the Richard episode and the Tailies episode from way back in season two, among others, “Across the Sea” is sort of a mission statement for what appears to be the Lost philosophy on answers. You’ll get answers, yes, but not necessarily explanations. As Alison Janney’s creepy mother character said, in a line that I’m assuming had to be spoken by a guest star to cut down on any involuntary winking directly into the camera, “every question I answer will only lead to another question.” No kidding, Lost, replied ten million people all at once.

This episode did answer questions, like: who is Jacob? Who was Fake Locke before he was Fake Locke? Where did the time-unsticking donkey wheel come from? And also: who are those skeletons in the caves from season one? But it didn’t necessarily explain any of that. We don’t know the exact nature of Creepy Mother’s power, or where she got it; we don’t know the specifics of her idea that the brothers can’t “hurt” each other, because they sure seemed able to punch each other in the face and draw blood, and whether their inability to kill each other was always there or only actually came to be once Jacob became the island’s guardian and Fake Locke became a swirling ball of electromagnetic smoke; and we don’t know exactly what happened to Jacob’s brother to turn him into the Smoke Monster Later Known as Fake Locke, or what percentage of the Smoke Monster contains Jacob’s brother’s soul (or whatever). Among other things.

Okay, let me get to this right away: I was not that into the idea of Betty White hosting Saturday Night Live. It has little to do with Betty White herself: I’ve seen most episodes of The Mary Tyler Moore Show and a bunch of Golden Girls — enough to know that the lady is an old-school comedy pro who, even more remarkably, was hitting her peak several decades into her television career.

But the Facebook group that brought her to SNL’s attention isn’t really about Betty White’s esteemed comedy career. It popped up after she appeared on a (cute, amusing) Super Bowl ad for Snickers, following her umpteenth saucy-grandma appearance in The Proposal. Again, nothing against White in either of these parts (although, really, she does very little of interest in The Proposal), but since when is a thirty-second commercial spot indicative of a talent or even proficiency in live sketch comedy? To me, this isn’t much different than, say, lobbying for the Taco Bell chihuahua to host SNL — because the kind of people who clicked on “Betty White to Host SNL (Please!)” aren’t, I’d wager, people who actually watch SNL with any kind of regularity. They’re the kind of people who think that saucy old ladies are delightfully hilarious pretty much by definition, and who have a vague idea that “funny” equals “should be on Saturday Night Live or something.” It’s confusing “funny” with “cute.” Wouldn’t it be darling if Betty White did SNL? Ooh, she could do a skit with that Jimmy Fallon! He’s still on the show, right? What about the Church Lady?

So when I heard about the decision to actually let life imitate Facebook, I was bummed. It sounded craven twice: first in that SNL was responding to, and not making fun of, an internet meme; and second because there’s no way Lorne Michaels would’ve put a call in to an eighty-eight-year-old old-school comedy pro without that stupid Facebook group, no matter how many saucy grandmas she played in second-to-third-rate comedies. In short: it may have been a nice idea, but it’s one that came about almost entirely because of non-fans of the SNL with lame taste in comedy. That shouldn’t be what it takes to bust out of SNL’s hosting formula (which usually equals attractive plus has movie coming out, plus or minus has another show on NBC).

I know this is just about the latest-starting weekly Lost recap/review series ever, but I found myself reading lots of Lost posts on Wednesday mornings, and I decided that it’s kind of weird not to have someone at Tifaux covering the only interesting one-hour show on network television (sorry, not feeling it, Glee, Chuck, or shows with cops, lawyers, or doctors). So glory to the low-tech debut of 5-4-3-2-Lost, covering the final five and a half hours of this crazy show.

The first third or so of “The Candidate” had me worried, rife as it was with island-hopping, which is far, far less enjoyable than time-hopping. At the end of the last episode, Jack ditched everyone else to stay behind and see what the island had in store for him. This episode promptly got the gang captured and caged, and sent Jack, NotLocke, and Sayid to save them. Entertaining enough, but as Sawyer noted out loud, it’s all a bit circular at this stage, don’t you think? I know some of this is necessary piece-moving, but I have to think there was a better way to get the good guys on the sub with NotLocke shut out and firefighting with Widmore’s people, and that Team Lost is maybe not thinking far enough ahead when they have so-and-so go to this island and such-and-such abscond for that island, and then one has to sneak onto the first island and retreat to the second island and blah blah blah.

But the episode more than made up for it in the second half, where we got character development, plot twists, emotion, and nerve-racking suspense strung together with merciless efficiency. The dilemma of the surprise bomb — Jack arguing that the candidates could not die by NotLocke’s hands, and so not tampering with the wiring would actually save them; Sawyer’s reasonable conclusion that he should tamper the hell out of that wiring — was fast and smart, and made the preceding half-hour or so make more sense, rather than less, without just raising six more questions.

Speaking of which: Now we’re really getting down to the wire, and I know some other fans/recappers/critics out there have gotten impatient for answers. What I think haters overlook, though, is how many answers we’ve already received — just often in a sidelong or subtle way. We’ve gradually learned pretty much the whole deal with Dharma, the Others, and a fair share about Jacob and the Man in Black. You know, big picture stuff. There are certainly early story threads that seem to have been dropped or at least consigned to the area of side freakiness for color rather than actual plotlines (Walt’s psychic powers; for that matter, Miles’s psychic powers; in Lost World, having any kind of psychic powers seems to be considered kind of a passing interest at best), but tying every throwaway character moment from the past six years into a nice bow wouldn’t be very satisfying, I don’t think.

Still, with just four and a half hours yet to air, there are some questions raised, especially by events of this season, that I will probably be irritated if/when they are left unanswered. To that end, I’ve compiled a list:

Who are the skeletons in the cave? Hurley just brought this up again this season, so they have to go back to it, right? This could go so many ways: freaky, heartbreaking, romantic, whatever. Do something.

You know when Sawyer and company were unstuck in time, and at one point they were getting shot at in a rainstorm? When was that? I know this is a minor point, but there better be some kind of awesome paradoxical-type answer to this!

What did Juliet mean when she told Miles “it worked” from beyond the grave? Also, what was going on when she was babbling about getting a cup of coffee when she lay dying in Sawyer’s arms? Both seem like she experienced some kind of Desmond-style consciousness traveling, so I guess I’m just looking for a little confirmation there.

Jacob isn’t just some benevolent zen-like figure who preaches just going with the flow, and Jack isn’t just going to take his place as Island Guardian, right? Because that would be fucking lame. Okay, I guess this is sort of a leading question. I’m fine with NotLocke being evil and Jacob, being in opposition to NotLocke, not being particular evil. But I hope the writers can find a more inventive, mind-bendy solution than a bunch of metaphysical mumbo-jumbo about good, evil, guardians, and fate.

There may be others, but I can’t think of them at the moment. I’d love to hear suggestions for the mysteries that must be at least addressed, if not completely solved, in the comments.

This has been kind of an up-and-downer of a season, with some flat-out great episodes mixed in with an inordinate amount of piece-moving and character-shuffling. But the circling and wiggling of those episodes will look a lot better in retrospect if the final hours really deliver. Of course, “retrospect” is a relative term for me: I’m not particularly planning on rewatching Lost ever. This diminishes my appreciation of certain aspects of the show because I have no practical interest in how certain episodes play better a second time, or watched in rapid succession on a DVD binge. But I think it also enhances my appreciation in that I have no problem enjoying Lost in the moment. I don’t cherish any of these characters as much as I adore, say, Mulder and Scully — but then, that could make a failure of masterplot more crushing, since there are plenty of stand-alone X-Files episodes based in character, even through the weaker seventh season (and the eighth and ninth seasons are easy to ignore). I’ve become invested in the Lost characters more as an inevitable offshoot of the cool weird sci-fi stuff. That said, the creators don’t need to throw a bunch more hardcore time-travel at me to win me over.

Next week, I’ll be back with another sorta-recap and a ridiculous wishlist of what I’d like to see from the show’s final hours.

I think the elevated expectations for the Gabourey Sidibe episode of Saturday Night Live must speak to Sidibe’s innate likability; most people have only seen her in the movie Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire if at all, which makes sense because while she’s shot some episodes of an upcoming TV show since, her hosting gig was really only her second acting gig. Yet everyone I talked to seemed to be psyched for her appearance based on her charming (and very non-Precious) interview presence.

She played up those differences, of course, in a jubilant monologue, singing about being herself to the tune of “It’s in His Kiss,” and singing quite well. For the rest of the show, she stumbled over lines pretty regularly, but it made sense: her only other acting that anyone has seen didn’t require a ton of dialogue, and her actual personality is far more exuberant. Her fumbles felt like excitement more than nerves.