It's Saturday night. What are you doing? One of three things, probably: sleeping, partying, or playing Pokemon SoulSilver. Last night, I was doing the latter. But eventually, after playing Pokemon for going on four hours, you think it's time to do something else. So what do you do then?
If you hate yourself, you watch Saturday Night Live.
"That's harsh, Allegra." Girl, please. PLEASE. If you think I'm being a bit over dramatic, then you obviously have not seen Saturday Night Live in the last eight years.
Here's last night's monologue for your convenience.
It's horrible, isn't it? The random appearances of all of those annoying characters was met with relative disinterest by the audience, except for Andy Samberg's Dick in a Box guy. People love the "Dick in a Box" sketch. And you know why? Because it wasn't LIVE.
I think there's something inherently wrong and pathetic about a show that purports itself as the best live comedy hour on television whose best sketches are, well, NOT LIVE. I mean, the show is live for a reason.
So why is all of the live content so bad? Why does it pale in comparison to the pre-taped content? I think it's because of the writing. The writing is just so weak these days. I like Seth Meyers; I think he's a cool, albeit weasel-faced, bro, but he just has not been a successful head writer, at all. Another reason could be that these actors just aren't such great live performers. It seems like all of the performers had some previous experience with it before joining the show, though, so I'm not so sure that's the reason. However, compared to previous casts, this one was much less experienced with improv, with only 1 member coming from Second City, another coming from the Groundlings, and then a few others being in lesser-known improv groups. (Oh, wait, but it doesn't even matter if they can do improv, since Stupid Lorne Michaels doesn't even let them improv! Stupid Lorne Michaels.)
Regardless of their prior experience with live performing, the current cast is actually undeniably funny, even though they try very, very, very hard not to be funny at all on the show (and succeed). Bill Hader, Kristen Wiig, Jason Sudeikis, and Andy Samberg are especially funny -- just not on the show. Andy Samberg is especially horrible on the show, unless he's doing one of his digital shorts. Those digital shorts are always, without exaggeration, the best parts of the show when they're on. Obviously, Andy Samberg's forte (get it? Because Will Forte is also a cast member? Tee-hee? Funny?) is writing his own material and then performing it in front of a camera, and not an audience.
Even feral cats like Andy Samberg!
That leopard is obviously only a fan of his Lonely Island/film work. (Erm, minus Hot Rod. Gross.)
It just bothers me every time I see the show that this awesome cast goes to waste because the writing is awful beyond belief. It's kind of sad, but I would be happy if the show was killed off. I think that it would give these actors the chance to do some better work that they can actually be successful in. They get the chance to film movies and such and such and such, but wouldn't it be cool if Bill Hader starred in his own TV show? Or if Kristen Wiig got the chance to really become the next top female comedienne?
Which brings up another point: everyone ranted and raved over the lackluster Tina Fey episode. Why? Because Tina Fey was there, and she was in the majority of the sketches, and anything with her, no matter how poor it is, is better than anything that they show these days without her. That episode was so hyped because the show has been so bad without her -- and personally, I didn't even find it all that great when she WAS on it! It's just so much more preferable to what we have now. Maybe it's because she's a writer first, and a good writer. Seth Meyers might be both a writer and a performer, but he's lackluster at both of those. I thought Tina Fey kind of sucked on Saturday Night Live, but if you watch even one episode of 30 Rock, you know how talented she really is. I think Andy Samberg would be successful if he was given the same kind of venue (not just with The Lonely Island).
So, in sum: the Saturday Night Live of today is horrible. It is a barren wasteland where talented performers go to make money that, based on the work they perform on the show, they don't really deserve, and where writers who may or may not be good go to become worse. Every single actor on the show is probably just using it to get more exposure so they can go down the Mike Myers or Will Ferrell route, although those two routes really are largely sucky, despite how much money those two might make. Hopefully soon Bill Hader will champion a revolt that will lead to the demise or at least mass exodus of the current cast before Lorne Michaels leeches all of the comic ability out of their impressionable young bodies.
And then they will all cry to Lorne Michaels:
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