One month and four days. SNL writers had one month and four days between new episodes to work on material, and what they ended up with was...Top Dog Chef. Last night's Jennifer Lawrence-hosted episode was, through no fault of her own (she was funny, charming, and game for anything), pretty awful, with a messy, packed first half making way for a stagnant second. It was maddeningly all over the place; not a single sketch felt fully formed.
Plus, WE JUST FOUND OUT A SUPER FAMOUS ATHLETE "KILLED" HIS FAKE GIRLFRIEND AND HAS BEEN LYING ABOUT IT FOR WEEKS, which, well, read that sentence again. It's perfect fodder for SNL...and it was reduced to a brief Weekend Update joke and one-third of a Piers Morgan cold open. But I'm sure the next time a celebrity is involved in an elaborate Internet hoax with a woman who never existed, SNL will get it right.
One more thing: JENNIFER LAWRENCE BOOBS NUDE BUTT NAKED JENNIFER LAWRENCE. Oh, hey, Google.
The episode shot its load early by cramming three giant news stories — Lance Armstrong, Manti Te'o, and Jodie Foster's insanity — into its unfunny cold open. That's a shame, too, because the only way they could have said something new about the Te'o scandal would have been to stretch it out into a full-length sketch. But instead, they went with overused one-liners for all three, and really the only decent part was Kate McKinnon's Foster impression.
Hey, no one sang! Amusing, but Lawrence was clearly nervous, and didn't pace the jokes properly. That's a small complaint, though; I'm always up for J-Law trashing nine year old girls.
Cecily Strong and Aidy Bryant, who really deserves more screentime, are quickly becoming two of my favorites, and Jennifer Lawrence was a nice addition as a mall punk who's totally been to New York, but in retrospect, "Girlfriend Talk Show" getting the post-Monologue timeslot, "Starbucks Verismo" notwithstanding, was a warning of what was to come. It had its moments (like Bryant's guinea pig pin), but it felt half-finished, like the writers got everything but the punchline, said "fuck it," and went to Hot Topic and Orange Julius, instead.
Oh boy, that moment when the video froze. Who knew SNL uses Quicktime to project their preproduced material? Anyway, as for the sketch itself, meh. Some of the movies landed (Gandalf Tries To Remember a Name, the one where the dwarves sing "The Longest Time"), but most flopped. In other words:
Maybe my favorite sketch of the night, though that's not saying much. Lawrence does "cruel" really well, and I'm all about characters telling other characters that they're sacks of hot garbage, but even this one had a weird non-ending, with whipped cream being unloaded onto Vanessa Bayer and Bobby Moynihan's heads. Ha?
Crispino must hang out with the "Da Bears" guys when he's not gathering up information about the Depp Ceiling.
You guys have no idea how much I wanted to love Top Dog Chef. It combined four of my favorite things into one sketch: dogs, food, Jennifer Lawrence, and awful puns. But HOLY CRAP was it awful. Pretty sure you could see the performers' dignity slowly evaporate while it kept going on and on and on. This is the kind of sketch that Old Man Moyihan is going to watch in 40 years, and after throwing his drink and glass into a fireplace, he'll scream, "The f*ck was I thinking?" to no one before dying. Because, really, the f*ck were they thinking?
Heh, "Busty Rhymes." J-Law got decent flow, yo, even if the premise was basically ripped from Jean-Ralphio. Not bothering with "Danielle" and "Civil War Lovers," because to phrase it like Busty: SNL had a month off/This should have been better/Why you gotta treat an Oscar winner/Like a DID YOU SEE TOP DOG CHEF?
This song needs to be in more commercials.
All hail the Hader.
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FINE, if I have to say something nice: Bobby Moynihan was great throughout.
Okay, I secretly kind of loved the “I’M A MESS!” line.
His weekend update as second hand information guy ruined everything else for me. I hate that character with a passion.
But he did have his moments
What a lazy, lazy episode. I kinda felt bad for JLaw, because they didnt really give her much to do the WHOLE TIME. Glad to see a lack of Armisen, though, not glad to see a lack of Hader.
Tommy Lee shuffle gif. or GTFO
Well, fine.
I added a page of Hader dancing GIFs, but Chet wins.
Haders gonna hade
Definitely not a strong show, but again, Jennifer Lawrence yo…
yeah this was pretty bad. jennifer lawrence is still great to look at though.
and god damn do i hate The Lumineers and all these other fucking folk-pop bands around right now.
Co-sign on both counts. Can we please get some better music on the show, please SNL?
It’s times like these that make me glad I gave up on SNL years ago.
Was she a little heavier? I’m not complaining, it was hawt. Check out that ass like 15 sec into the monologue.
You mean compared to the Hunger Games where she is supposed to be a starving teenager who has never had enough to eat?
Yes, that movie that she supposedly didn’t lose weight for.
*insert the generic but true statement that SNL needs to clean house with their writing staff*
Aren’t the actors the writing staff?
REMINDER: The Lumineers played at my house early last year before most people knew who they were. Doing so obviously propelled them to stardom.
[www.youtube.com]
My bad…here’s the embed.
You know, it’s not really cool to brag about your sex slaves. Especially when they escape and go on SNL.
Cool house. Exposed wiring is the new exposed brick.
You could have at least taken the time to package this reminder as a humble brag.
@DNP: @DNP…It’s a restoration project. It’s a big house, and parts of it are still a work in progress. It was abandoned for years and heavily damaged by Katrina. But it’s got a rustic/gothic quality to it that’s quite pretty, especially on film. Which is one of the reasons Tom Lennon and Ben Garant chose to shoot “Hell Baby” — which is premiering RIGHT NOW THIS VERY SECOND at Sundance — here. The movie’s tagline: “An expectant couple moves into the most haunted fixer-upper in New Orleans — a house with a demonic curse.” Yes, that’s the house I live in.
[www.nola.com]
Cajun Boy, do you actually know people in the business? Are you friends with Tom Lennon and Ben Garant and The Lumineers? ARE YOU FAMOUS? I keep thinking all the bloggers here are just guys and then they surprise me by being like… people. Who do stuff.
I did not know Tom and Ben before they literally just showed up at my house with a location scout last March. Nor did I know the Lumineers before them playing at my place was arranged by a mutual friend. I am not “famous.” But I am kind of “That Guy.”
It seems kind of disingenuous of them to play at someone else’s house, like they’re some sort of wandering band that breaks into people’s place and just start playing.
Excuse me, I’ve got to write down “Exposed wiring is the new exposed brick”.
I was wondering about the freezing during The Hobbit trailer, that was really awkward. I turned off the TV right when I saw that Top Dog Chef was a thing.
I actually thought that was a reference to Jackson’s technical prowess, frames per second glitches or some such.
Instead of feeling foolish I think I’ll feel proud to know nothing of his work post Heavenly Creatures.
JLaw deserves so much better.
But I did laugh at Future Beard and all the reporters ragging on poor, tiny Peeta.
Can I eat your beard if you shave it
This cracked me up
My first thought when the Te’o scandal broke was “Here comes the SNL ‘Manti Te’o Dating Game’” and apparently that was too difficult.
I figured they would’ve had a field day with that. Only thing I could think of why they let him off so easy was some Team NBC love? Manti dating game could’ve been amazing.
I’m just waiting for South Park to get a hold of the Te’o gimmick.
besides the freezing, did anyone notice the announcer say “part 8″ when “part 10″ was on the screen? or maybe i was too drunk and imagined it. if that happened though, that thing had to be a super rush job
Nope, I noticed it too.
I noticed it as well. And the audio difficulty they had in the video was pretty good metaphor of how that show went.
[www.universitypickers.com]
You know an episode is bad when the wife and I were flipping back and forth between that and the Mighty Ducks.
Jennifer Lawerence was good with what she had to work with. I, I just can’t believe the terrible skits they had. A Hunger Games parody was expected, but, that was the best they could come up with? Terrible.
At least they had a nice shot of her nice ass right before she started her monologue.
So are we still acting like hosting SNL is a highlight in someone’s career?
At this point, I consider any episode that doesn’t have the Californians a success.
I like the Lumineers. They’re like Arcade Fire with 12 fewer eukelele players.
Also Jennifer Lawrence is so much better than Ann Hathaway
I will admit that it was a mediocre episode, but I will give them a little credit for having some edgier material after the very wholesome Christmas episode. The Daniella sketch was pretty unique, and I really liked Moynihan’s new character on Weekend Update. I was talking to a coworker at DISH who thought that Top Dog Chef was one of the worst sketches SNL has ever done, and I couldn’t really argue against him. I missed the last half of the show because I fell asleep, but I was able to catch up with a recording. I love how my DISH Hopper can hold up to 2,000 hours of entertainment because even though we record a lot of different series I can still afford to keep this mediocre episode for the few moments that did work.
Another week of little funny. I admit I laughed a couple times. Still, a lot of work to keep Ms. Lawrence from excelling. She WAS super-good in “Winter’s Bone”.
I definitely enjoyed the diner sketch, but it was thrown off the whole time for me because their drink orders got reversed and no one mentioned it.
For anyone who caught the Emanuelle reference, the ‘Danielle’ sketch was one of the funniest I’ve seen in a long while!
Wait. Are you guys telling me that SNL isn’t as good as it once was? THAT is fresh news! I love Warmingglow but FFS sometimes it’s like watching someone kick the most obvious of puppies. Are you really watching SNL with such a critical eye? I’m willing to bet if you go back to the glory days of SNL you’d have trouble finding that many solid hour and a half episodes. Get over yourselves!
This is the same website that consistently maintains that Happy Endings and Don’t Trust the B… are great comedy. Does anyone else see the irony here?
I’m curious, what shows do you think are funny?
Don’t forget the love of New Girl and its manstruations.
Maybe it was a situation where all the talented writers took some much needed vacation time during the four weeks, but there was like one terrible writer who noticed this was happening so he stated behind in the writers room for weeks knowing he would have the competitive advantage. Then when the week of the show came about, they asked anyone for ideas, and right there, ready to go, was the fully fleshed out treatment for TOP DOG CHEF.
I thought it was a terrible episode overall, but you liked all the sketches I loathed and ignored most of the sketches I enjoyed. And am I the only one that thought Bobby Moynihan was the MVP of this episode? He was the best part of every sketch he was in, and I thought he saved the Cold Open from being an absolute failure.