Saturday Night Live (SNL) 2018-2019 44th Season Thread

Then don't comment and move along. Commenting about not commenting is useless.

 

I suppose I'm part of the demographic for this show because I started watching the first cast when I was a kid in the 70's and I still watch it as a middle-ager nearly every weekend. Like most, I have my favorite casts & seasons, and there's been a lot of up & down, and perhaps I watch a bit of out nostalgia too. I do think the last couple of seasons have been especially sucky though. I blame it mostly on poor writing.

The current cast is good for the most part. Kate, Cecily, Aidy, Kyle, Beck, and Kenan stand out for me when they are given good material. But... Leslie Jones sucks! She flubs nearly every line and the angry loud black woman shtick is tired. Pete Davidson super sucks! He plays a non-funny parody of himself generally. Melissa Villasenor can go as well. Weekend update should be more consistent than it is. I'd rather not see another Baldwin Trump skit again, they've run it into the ground.

I did think the latest show with Seth Meyers hosting was the strongest in a while though, I laughed more than usual anyway. I think my wife wants to know where she can get some Beta-Force.

 

Leslie Jones is regularly awful. The fact that she was nominated for an Emmy staggers me.

 

I'm with you completely. Leslie and Pete are awful. Leslie can't even read off a teleprompter without flubbing her lines. Neither can keep it together at all in a sketch. And they can't really play characters. Take the "So You're Willing To Date A Magician?" sketch from last week. Leslie is the host, and right off the bat, her very first line, and she's already stumbled. Then we get the cast of magicians - Keenan, Kyle, Alex with Heidi. All are decently funny, but then the last one is Pete and he's just a lame parody of himself again. Why couldn't they have Mikey or Beck or Chris Redd do that part?

Leslie is a little more versatile here, but not much. The only thing either one has an aptitude for are the WU appearances where they are basically just doing a short stand up routine.

 

They went after Kanye pretty hard in that opening sketch, I wonder if it was ‘payback’ from his political message at the end of the episode the other week.

 

No way! I think she's been great the two or three times that she's actually had more than two lines a sketch.
I agree about Davidson. I don't get the appeal but then I still don't get what anyone sees in Jimmy Fallon.

 

Pete Davidson had a funnier commentary about it in Weekend Update last week.

 

Leslie Jones isn't the first loud, unfunny person to get attention on SNL but she's the current one. But most of these people are funny and the laughs come from the performers more than the concepts. Melissa Villasenor may have been promoted to regular but Heidi Gardener is taking up a lot of space. Melissa didn't look happy playing Wife #3 in the Coo-ba sketch. Pete is one of the luckiest people in the world but at least he knows it.

 

Whatever the motivation, it sucked.

Every time I watch this show I have trouble getting more than a half hour into it before quitting. Last night I wanted to see Paul Simon and found myself sitting through that bit with Leslie Jones and the other gal sexually harassing Seth Meyers. Thinking about it now if that were two guys doing that to a female? Yikes. But even forgetting anything remotely political, the bit just wasn’t funny. You wonder how with an entire week to choose material that something like that ever gets out of the ladies room, but whatever.

And the sketch with people asking weird questions of a movie director? How does that ever get through without someone noticing a big, oversized problem? The bit just isn’t funny.

I saw the first performance from Simon and found it quite interesting. Didn’t see the second as I decided I could not sit through any more of the show.

 

Update! Pete and Ariana have split. He'll be gone from our lives soon enough.

 

His success on the show has nothing to do with Ariana. The only reason he'd leave after this would be if it messed him up mentally, which I'm concerned about, honestly.

 

I think that is what was being implied.

 

Doubt it. Kanye's bizarre meeting with Trump was major news and would've gotten a blistering reaction if he'd not played the show last week...

 

I'm surprised that the low hanging fruit of Presidential hopeful Cory Booker has not come on SNL's radar this season. Sen. Booker has been in the spotlight for his "I Am Spartacus" moments in the televised hearings he's appeared on this year. How easy and funny that would be to lampoon him !!

While Tina Fey is a dead ringer for Sarah Palin, Keegan-Michael Key is a dead ringer for Sen. Cory Booker.

I'll let you tell me why that wouldn't be funny having Keegan-Michael Key lampoon Cory Booker.

 

Chris Redd played him in the first episode during the Brett Kavanaugh sketch.

 

You do know that he is not and has never been in the cast, right?

 

Pete got a lot of attention at the beginning of the season from the show and the audience because he was in the news. Now it's back to his dynamic sketch performances and reminding us about his problems on Update. No one can comment on that and I don't dislike the guy but it is easy to to disappear in a cast this size.

 

People complain about Pete and Leslie -- and not without good reason, I realize. But I regularly like both of them, despite their foibles. They rarely hit it out of the park, but I've been known to chuckle at about half of what each of them serve up.

I do like the age diversity they each bring to the table -- Pete being so young -- and Leslie, who's almost 50. Do I think either one of them will stick around for 7 years? - probably not. Are there other cast members I like better? - sure, of course. Are there other cast members I like LESS - sure, that too.

I hope they're both around long enough that their eventual exits don't seem SO "too soon" as to seem like they're career ending. They're both pretty funny sometimes, and there's a genuine quality to what both Pete and Leslie bring to the table, that I kinda like.

I think part of what makes them both somewhat endearing, is that they're both fun to root for. Sometimes what's funny on SNL isn't only what they're doing/saying/what's scripted. But it's also seeing these folks trying to make it happen, whether they succeed (or not). A whole cast of Petes and Leslies would NOT work, I will totally admit. But the world is big enough (and SNL is too) for one or two folks like them, who bring something else different to the table.

Not a full-throated endorsement, but I'm not pining for their departure either.

 

Hedie Gardner is HUBBA HUBBA!!

Chris Redd should be promoted to Rep player soon - he's good.

Pete could go back to featured.

Kate needs to get out of there soon and focus on her film projects.

And I'll keep watching as long as its free and my DVR can skip commercials.

Unpopular opinionaul Simon needs to have already quit - his voice is not anywhere near to what it used to be.

 

Melissa is such a zero. I think they keep her around so they can say they have a Latina in the cast. That's the only thing I can figure. Glad to see Ady and Kyle back though. Neither seemed to be on the show very much last year.

 

Yeah neither are Alec Baldwin, Matt Damon, Melissa McCarthy as spicer, back to Tina fey as palin.

 

Tina was...

 

Til 2006. Then did guest spots for the 2008 election.

 

Thank you for insightful reply. Yes, I know that, and I know that Matt Damon has never been in the cast. Now what was it you were saying??

 

Oh, you mean the very unfuuny and not very talented Chris Redd, that attempted to play Kanye West last week ???