Saturday Night Live: Season 36, Episode 22: Justin Timberlake/Lady Gaga

I know I tend to be hard on Saturday Night Live, and I don't always mean to be. I have very high expectations for the show, as if a part of me anticipates that it will somehow live up to the memory of how funny and subversive the show seemed when I was a kid. In reality, SNL probably was no more a paragon of smart, consistent humor then than it is now. And, by its thirty-sixth season on the air, the show has at least demonstrated an ability to connect with new audiences, even if this means occasionally alienating audiences who've left the target demographic.

Regardless, I came into this week's season finale with high hopes. Justin Timberlake is a heck of a performer (something I'd never have imagined saying ten years ago!) and knows how to entertain the crowd. His track record as a host has been pretty solid, as he's not afraid to try new things and really give the show his all, so I had reason to believe that this inconsistent season would end well.

Saturday Night Live - Season 36, Episode 21: Ed Helms/Paul Simon

Coming on the heels of last week's mostly-successful Tina Fey episode, this week's Saturday Night Live seemed primed to continue the momentum heading into next week's Justin Timberlake-hosted finale. Ed Helms is a pretty funny guy, and Paul Simon is a veteran of the show, having hosted and performed numerous times over the years. But, as ever, the proof is in the pudding, and this week's pudding unfortunately proved to be a demonstration of the things that have hurt SNL time and again.

Apologies

Hi folks,

Between Mother's Day last Sunday, Blogger's problems this past week, and my own personal issues, I was unable to post about last weekend's Doctor Who and Saturday Night Live (this despite a combined 8 pages of notes on the two). I apologize for falling down on the job. I will try to post an abbreviated reviewcap for last week's Doctor Who prior to tonight's episode (in US time, obviously. I know it has already aired in the UK!) and will hopefully get another one ready for this week's Neil Gaiman-penned episode over the next few days. I fear, however, that last week's SNL—and, potentially, this week's—will have to fall by the wayside.

Further, my regular movie-watching schedule has been disrupted and won't likely revert to my usual movie-or-disc-of-tv-series-per-day average anytime soon. This means that the volume of FIs and SitSes and reviews is likely to remain low for the near future. Again, I apologize, but instability reigns right now and, as stupid as it may sound, I need a predictable, low-stress routine to write even these piddling little reviews and pieces.

I wish I had better news to tell you, but the truth is the truth. It's not the first time I've settled into a nice pattern for a month or so only to have it disrupted by my stupid issues. I'm sad to say that it probably won't be the last, either. Sorry once more, and thanks for bearing with me.

Programming Note

Just a quick update to let you know that, although my personal life continues to be unpredictable and unsettled, I hope to keep writing at about the same pace. We'll see how that works out, I suppose.

In the meantime, I have been changing the tags here on the blog, so I apologize for anything that may have double posted in the feed as a result. From this point forward, "Reviews" will point only to full-length film reviews. The new tag "Reviewcaps" will point towards in-depth reviews/recaps of individual TV episodes (or, occasionally, single discs of a TV series). "FI" and "SitS" will remain unchanged, but will no longer be accompanied by "Reviews" as a tag in order to avoid redundancy. I just thought I would share all of this for the absolutely none of you who care about my tagging system ;)

In content news, one thing I DO hope to begin is a series of reviewcaps about the new season of Doctor Who when it premieres on Saturday. I'm not sure if I'll be able to watch it the night it airs, but either way I'd like to write posts about it each week, so hopefully I'll be able to cobble something together within a few days of each airing.

This also may complicate the SNL reviewcaps I've been writing these last few weeks. I'm not sure yet whether I'll continue with those or not; as they seem to bring in a decent amount of search traffic, it'd be a shame to stop entirely. But with Doctor Who airing on the same night, and the amount of effort/attention/note-taking even one fully-reviewcapped show demands, it may get tricky.

There are a few more things I'm thinking about doing here, including potentially reviewcapping Treme and incorporating other new occasional features, so more on that as it develops. Plus, with all my private uncertainty, who knows what I'll actually have time to do?

For now, I'll just take things as they come and post what I can. Hope you enjoy!

Saturday Night Live - Season 36, Episode 19: Helen Mirren/Foo Fighters

I don't want to bury the lede, so I'll just come right out and say it:

Helen Mirren is damned sexy.

OK. Now that THAT's out of the way, let's chat a bit about tonight's SNL. It might not have been as bad as last week's episode, but it suffered from many of the same problems. These issues were mitigated somewhat by Dame Helen's willingness to try more things than Sir Elton -- she played herself only in the Digital Short, and impersonated several other celebrities with some success -- but they still smarted plenty. It's hard to watch this show and not think: This could be better. This should be better. And given the caliber of tonight's host, those thoughts have rarely been more true.

Saturday Night Live - Season 36, Episode 18: Elton John (AND FRIENDS!)

While my heart wants to give SNL the benefit of the doubt and say that this venerable show has had more ups than downs this season, my brain knows that would be overly generous. With few exceptions, the show has had a rough year. Some of the sketches have had good ideas behind them, but of these merry few, fewer still have had the execution to match. I have my own theories about what Lorne and Co. need to do to fix this, but I'll spare you that treatise for now -- aside from noting that Fred Armisen and Kristen Wiig have got to go -- and focus on the task at hand.