Community: Messianic Myths and Ancient Peoples
I’m worried a little bit for this show, because, between this week and last week, it’s lost its groove. Last night pushed the least funny thing about Abed so, so hard to the point that it lost sight of what it was parodying—or maybe it never really had an angle on what it was satirizing at all. It’s a shame, because Abed/Shirley episodes are rare. Then again, Pierce’s acting like a surly teenager towards Jeff and Britta was pure gold. (“Go wait in the car.”)
30 Rock: Reganing
It’s usually the third subplot that sinks a 30 Rock episode, and I often wonder why they insist on doing them. But, when they pull them off, the whole episode comes together. Jenna and Kenneth working together completely fell flat during the episode when she was trying to get him back into the page program. Last night, it was as if they said, “Wait, we could have done it better.” And they did. Usually I have no use for Kelsey Grammer outside of Sideshow Bob, but he totally nailed his cameo. (“I’ll just need fifty dollars to get started.”)
The Office: The Sting
This episode of The Office had a few of my personal favorite things. I love it when Jim and Dwight go out on sales calls together. I love it when Michael lands a pitch/sale (because you can see how he got promoted in the first place—he actually is a good salesman). And, most of all, I love Timothy Olyphant! Squee!
It was hard for me to determine who won Thursday this week, because I didn’t particularly love any of it. It’s like we’ve reached that part in the semester when the novelty of our new classes has worn off, and now the homework is starting to be a slog. Let’s take a look:
Community: Basic Rocket Science
I feel like this is what they were referring to when the creators said they wanted to do more episodes like the paintball one, but this was no paintball episode. The whole school-pride aspect of the plot felt forced, like they just wanted to give Jeff some kind of reason for a pithy speech, and I didn’t for a second believe it or believe that Annie would transfer. It was all very superficial.
30 Rock: Live Show (East Coast version)
Yes, yes. It was live. There were lots of funny only-in-a-live-episode gags (Julia Louis-Dreyfus!) and meta-live jokes. But how was it as an episode of 30 Rock? Not so great. For one thing, I found audience laughter off-putting. It really slowed down the pacing of the show. Then, did they really do an everybody-forgot-my-birthday plot? 30 Rock, you’re better than that.
The Office: Sex Ed
I can see how episodes like this are necessary to give a proper send-off to Michael Scott. It was neat to see him go back through all of his love interests, and it was a nice, meaty storyline for him. It just wasn’t very funny, and a lot of the women kept hitting the same exasperated-with-Michael beat. (Understandably, but it’s kind of a slog.) Jan’s was the only scene that was pitched differently, and that made me squirm.
Inspired by my last post on the similarities between Glee and Kids Incorporated, I dug up another side-by-side comparison. This time, you be the judge: Which video do you prefer?
(From Glee, Season 1, Episode 1)
(From Kids Incorporated, Season 1)
Not to influence opinion at all, but I do think Kids Incorporated deserves some credit for changing the lyrics from “I need a man” to “I need someone.” Way to be accidentally progressive, Disney.
This is (somewhat) more like it. The Jane Lynch-hosted episode of SNL was not excellent straight through, but it had the kinds of major peaks that can keep the show worth watching during its usual unevenness. There were three sketches that I straight-up loved, most prominently the “New Boyfriend Talk Show” bit with Andy Samberg playing a sweetly dorky little kid who interviews the suitors of his single mom (Jane Lynch). This could’ve been pretty mean-spirited, but it managed to exploit several angles after announcing its clever premise: the upbeat neediness of Samberg’s kid character, the growing dismay of new “boyfriend” Jason Sudeikis learning about Lynch’s many past conquests, and Lynch’s unflappable encouragement of her son. In fact, I think the sketch works especially well because Lynch and Samberg affect a weirdly sweet, affectionate relationship, rather than a darkly antagonistic (this helps the darker stuff — Lynch apparently having slept with Magic Johnson — go down easier). It’s telling that when I see a sketch like this, part of me is just relieved that the host played a central role that probably wouldn’t be recast, thus hopefully discouraging the writers from repeating it several more times.
The other two standout sketches were shorter: the parody of Christine O’Donnell’s already-kinda-hilarious “I’m not a witch” ads; it may have been an easy target, but they went after it with gusto, especially when the camera pulls out to reveal a skeleton playing the piano. I also adored the flat-out weirdness of parodying those Tax Masters ads by supposing that the pitchman is always filmed in profile due to a tiny identical twin growing out of his head.
Between three hilarious sketches, another decent musical monologue, a decent commercial parody for the “Damn, my mom’s on Facebook” app, and a serviceable (if still not top-level) Weekend Update, this was certainly the best episode of the young Season 36 and, as such, excused some stumbles.
It’s a little strange, for example, that new cast member Jay Pharoah has been shown exclusively as an impressionist; building an entire sketch around his (excellent, uncanny) Denzel Washington imitation, for example, is the kind of thin, cheap stuff you expect from middling stand-up comedy or that Frank Caliendo guy who apparently used to have a show on TBS. The impression was spot-on, as was his Will Smith from a few weeks ago, but that kind of impression-for-impression’s sake material works better either on Weekend Update, where it’s not burdened with a half-premise, or in one of those goofy impression showcases where they throw together five or six celebrities in a waiting room or an ad or a red carpet or something.
Pharoah, though, is still new, and it’s nice that they’re giving him a showcase (even if it’s strange that the other featured players haven’t been afforded such an opportunity). The Denzel sketch was fun to watch even if it wasn’t much in the way of actual comedy. Like a lot of good impressions, it pointed out tics you might have only noticed subliminally, but also engendered a weird kind of affection toward the target; it kinda made me want to go and watch some Denzel movies (luckily, Unstoppable is barreling toward us; come to think of, why didn’t they save Pharoah’s Denzel for next month, when he’ll presumably be all over the place promoting his newest Tony Scott train disaster movie?!).
There’s no such excuse in place for trotting out three different Kristen Wiig characters. Someone at the show seemed to be under the twin incorrect (twincorrect?) assumptions that (a.) Jane Lynch, being a funny lady, would have to play mostly opposite other funny ladies; and (b.) Wiig is the only woman on the show, not one of four. So we got three Wiig-centric bits that varied from lousy to passable (sometimes in the space of a single sketch).
Admittedly, the Glee stuff diluted the punishing sameness of every Gilly sketch, but it also took out the incidental pleasures of those sketches (like the non-Gilly characters) and forced Sudeikis to imitate the Will Forte lightly-admonishing teacher voice that is more or less my favorite thing about that stupid sketch (well, that and Gilly’s dancing; I’m sorry, Wiig can just be funny to watch, which is probably why the writers get incredibly lazy when creating sketches for her).
At least that sketch also parodied Glee, although I can’t say how well, because I don’t watch that shit. I can appreciate that it saved us from sitting through separate sketches about Glee and Gilly. But I’m not sure why they keep bringing back “Secret Word” — or at least, not in the way that they insist on doing it, with Wiig’s pretentious-stage-actress character always eating up half the screentime. It’s not a great sketch on its own, but the other character bungling the secret-word concept is reliably more entertaining than Wiig by simple virtue of newness. Lynch had fun playing a Phyllis Diller-ish stand-up, and I loved Bill Hader’s host getting genuinely angry when she suggested that he was “full of bananas,” but there was plenty of dead-air Wiig mugging to ensure that the sketch wasn’t worth watching. The Suze Orman sketch managed to feel like like a relief, because it’s a more dexterous character for Wiig than most of her one-note jobs.
Still, a couple of time-wasters couldn’t fully undermine the best moments of the show, or the general fun of seeing an older, hilarious comedienne jumping into the SNL formula. Lynch fit into almost everything, including the often host-free Digital Shorts and fake commercial. Can’t she quit Glee and join this show instead?
It wasn’t the strongest of weeks for the NBC shows, but each episode did have some big laughs. Let’s get to it:
Community: The Psychology of Letting Go
Finally! A story that wasn’t “study group vs. rest of Greendale,” or “Jeff’s old life vs. Jeff’s new life.” I actually enjoyed the fact that they had petty disagreements and intra-group dynamics (like Shirley’s feeling left out) and somehow didn’t end the episode with a huge group hug. It earns extra points for that crack about Britta’s ever-so-slightly curled hair, because that always bothers me, too. But Pierce’s strange qualities, like his laser-oriented religion, seem forced and precious compared to Creed’s in The Office.
30 Rock: Let’s Stay Together
Remember what I said last week about 30 Rock getting bogged down in its insistence on having three storylines in each episode? This is what I’m taking about. The Kenneth and Jenna plot had weak, easy material for both of them that just wasn’t very funny. It’s a shame, too, since they built up Kenneth re-applying to the NBC page program so much, only to have him re-hired by Jack the way Jack offered to do last week. They didn’t really squeeze in any good jokes about it between last week and this one.
The Office: Andy’s Play
So painful! This episode didn’t reach the “Scott’s Tots” level of cringe-worthiness, but Michael’s, “what part do I play?” really twisted the knife. (Even hearing second-hand about his Law & Order audition was uncomfortable, before we see it in the credit sequence.) However, he was allowed to redeem himself with his pick-me-up speech to Andy, which made me feel better about life, and they had Erin be the correct amount of stupid this time.
My thoughts about Glee are hard to express in words, so I’ll let these videos say what I’m thinking.
(Pay special attention to the dance moves around the 1:20 mark.)
(I don’t know what’s going on between the girl in the hat and the keytarist.)
I can’t tell if this boils down to, “I liked it better the first time around, when it was called Kids Incorporated,” or “This is just as bad as Kids Incorporated!”
So they’re not making Armisen give up Obama, for reasons unknown apart from what I assume is general Lorne Michaels stubbornness. SNL continues, though, to at least work around it; Obama had only the set-up for one of the better political cold-opens in awhile, which made excellent use of Andy Samberg’s Rahm Emmanuel. Samberg isn’t really an impressionist by trade, and when he does dip into imitations, they tend to be Hollywood people who he can push into absurdity with ease. His Emmanuel, though, is one of the only political bits on the current iteration of SNL that has any kind of satirical take; an obvious one (Rahm as the profane, sinister puppetmaster and dealmaker), sure, but at least it’s fun.
For the first thirty minutes or so, the Bryan Cranston-hosted episode of SNL appeared to be business as usual, but running smooth: a decent political cold open; an amusing musically inclined monologue; an ad for Pepto Bismol ice; an obvious bid for a recurring sketch, “The Miley Cyrus Show,” that didn’t wear out its welcome yet (give it a few weeks, although newcomer Vanessa Bayer does a spot-on and very funny Miley); and an actual recurring sketch with this season’s first “What Up with That.”
So far, so decent. But then the show went and scraped bottom with the laziness of Kristen Wiig’s breathy-voiced-but-gross mock-sexy Shana character, a sketch that was very funny once and, guess what, isn’t that funny three or four times. Here, it felt like no one was even making the minimal effort, starting with the premise: so Cranston was playing a basketball coach? And the three cast members were on the team? So they were kids, right? And so is Abby Elliot, who is the coach’s assistant or something? Which is kind of weird, right, to have a teenage girl assisting a basketball coach of teenage boys? And who is Shana in relation to these people? A lady who shows up at basketball practice? What are the relationships here? Little things, yes, but when a sketch’s set-up is neither logical nor defiantly absurdist, it seems like the writers thought this one would take care of itself. Wiig got off some chuckleworthy physical bits, particularly her unsexy “mixing” of a protein shake, but I almost felt guilty laughing at it, because easy laughter is actually the kind of unearned reward sketches like this feed on.
After this, it was back to more or less business as usual: a funny Digital Short; music; Weekend Update; a game-show sketch that mostly didn’t work; a post-Update bit of absurdity; and a nice character-driven sketch from Nasim Pedrad. There was a slight change of balance, Kanye West’s performances being more compelling than the average musical guest and Weekend Update having some uncharacteristically lame jokes, but it was pretty much a normal SNL episode.
But after that Shana sketch, everything felt slightly diminished. I love Nasrim Pedrad’s fondness for young, nerdy characters, but as funny as her meek mural-loving boy character was, it also shared a cadence with the girl who really admires her parents from last season. The “bottle of sparking apple juice” sketch was nicely ridiculous but I feel like Will Forte would’ve really sold the hell out of it. The “Kidz Smarts” game show bit didn’t really go anywhere except maybe knocking off the “kissing family” sketch that I’m sure will turn up before October’s end.
So following a season premiere that felt scattered in the face of so many guest stars, this was pretty much standard issue SNL sans inspiration: entertaining, uneven, a little tired.
Community: Accounting for Lawyers
What’s that? Is Jeff choosing his rag-tag study-group misfits over his glamorous lawyer life again? Come on, Community. This is season two.
30 Rock: When It Rains, It Pours
Sometimes 30 Rock gets tangled up by trying to juggle too many plotlines, but this time they all succeeded. Welcome back, Dr. Spaceman!
The Office: Counseling
The scenes between Michael and Toby were nicely done and really well-acted, but Dwight is no Pretty Woman. Still not fond of Stupid!Erin.
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!
Posted by Marisa