TV Review: Saturday Night Live Hosted by Paul Rudd

This week marks Saturday Night Live’s first post-election episode. For weeks the show has been able to rely on plenty of material ripe for parody. Tina Fey’s turn as Sarah Palin gave the show its highest ratings in years. The big question is how will the show fare now that the election is over? Another strike against the show was the exit of longtime cast member Amy Poehler (though she still was named in the opening credits). However, if this week’s show is any indication of the future, they might actually do alright.

It’s been a long time coming, but two new female comedians have been added to the cast as featured players. Abby Elliott and Michaela Watkins made their not ready for prime-time debuts this week. Elliott is the daughter of actor/comedian Chris Elliott. Chris Elliott himself was a SNL cast member during the 1984-85 season. Prior to joining Saturday Night Live, Elliott was a part of the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre, a sketch/improve group co-founded by Amy Poehler. Michaela Watkins was a main company member with the Los Angeles-based Groundlings comedy troupe. Several notable SNL alumni made their way to the show via The Groundlings including, Phil Hartman, Will Ferrell, Cheri Oteri, Kristen Wiig, Ana Gasteyer, Chris Kattan, Chris Parnell, and Jon Lovitz.

Cold Open: “The Office of the Vice-President Elect” (Grade B-)

Jason Sudeikis as Joe Biden promises that he will be an “entertaining” vice-president. The sketch somewhat cleverly addresses the issue that President-Elect Obama will not provide enough comedy material for the late night shows to make fun of. While that all remains to be seen, SNL went fairly soft on Biden during the campaign (I mean nothing on Biden’s remarks about people watching FDR on television in 1939?), so it will be interesting to see if they amp things up for his time in office as the VP. This sketch was average as far as political sketches go. The jokes about Biden’s gaffes were predictable and Sudeikis needs to work on making his impression a little more dynamic. There could be more to Biden than just having him yell out every sentence in a loud monotone.

Opening Monologue: Paul Rudd (Grade B)

In his monologue Rudd explicitly addresses SNL’s post-election blues by playing up the fact that some of the excitement about the show might be gone. On the bright side Rudd explained that Kristen Wiig’s impression of Arizona governor Janet Napolitano will be just as good as Tina Fey’s Sarah Palin. The monologue was a good way to address the “what’s next for SNL” question.

Article Author: Sherry Lipp

Sherry writes mostly music and DVD reviews, and on occasion she gets to do an interview. She plays the guitar, loves to read, watch movies, and write. Sherry also is a gluten free food blogger, and enjoys coming up with grain and sugar free recipes.

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