SNL Scorecard: Did Russell Brand Somehow Just Host the Best Show of the Season?
The Bad
"Bill O'Reilly-Barack Obama Cold Open" (Sudeikis, Armisen, Pedrad) I don't know what it is, but the political sketches this season -- which are usually always present in the cold open -- have had absolutely no sting. With this one in particular, there's just not much here. Even though Sudeikis doesn't do a particularly good O'Reilly impression, he's got the mannerisms and the condescending interjections pretty much down. Put it this way, on a night like this, even a "bad" sketch like this one isn't really that bad. It's just mediocre.
Score: 5.5
"A Spot of Tea" (Samberg, Hader, Brand): There's something about this one that I really wanted to like. And I know they were going for the weird factor, but, in reality, it was just Samberg, Hader and Brand doing "old lady British voices."
Score: 5.0
"Vacation Giveaway" (Wiig, Brand, Thompson, Killam, Moynihan): I'll never understand why this aired so early in the broadcast considering how much good material they had last night. The only thing remarkable about this sketch was the fact that Russell Brand played a dialed-down, normal human being. (An American, no less!)
Score: 4.0
The Ugly
"George Washington" (Brand, Sudeikis, Hader, Wiig, Killam) The most disappointing sketch of the night. OK, so, current members of congress bring George Washington back to get his opinions on current events. Think of the wealth of material (as Seth Meyers hinted at a few weeks ago on "Update") this sketch could have produced: Perhaps Washington, an all-knowing founding father, could have given us his not-so-great views on slavery? Instead, Washington is scared, he punches a few people and he's killed. A wasted opportunity.
Score: 2.5
Average Score For This Show: 6.35
Weekly Host Scorecard:
· Russell Brand 6.35
· Jeff Bridges 6.21
· Amy Poehler 6.04
· Anne Hathaway 6.00
· Emma Stone 5.88
· Gwyneth Paltrow 5.88
· Jon Hamm 5.86
· Paul Rudd 5.83
· Robert De Niro 5.83
· Jim Carrey 5.80
· Jesse Eisenberg 5.79
· Bryan Cranston 5.79
· Dana Carvey 5.75
· Jane Lynch 5.31
· Scarlett Johansson 4.69
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Comments
Not that I'm aware of?
Couldn't agree more about "British Movie" and Stefon. During the Stefon bit, it almost seemed as if Hader had never seen his lines before reading them on the cue cards. It kinda looked like he would read them to himself, crack up about them, and then try to deliver them. Is it possible the writers prank him with totally new material for the live broadcast?
I loved the British Movie skit. The critics quotes had me in tears.
Eminem/Li'l Wayne were awesome. Stefon is Stefon, I am tired of him by now. The political stuff was boring, except for the George Washington skit, which I would have ranked higher than Mike did. Overall, Brand was funny and a good sport.
"British Movie" was excellent. For me, on par with "Jeff'd."
Average for the season, but the season hasn't had a truly bad episode yet. British Movie, Royal Taster, and Weekend Update were all brilliant. The rest of the show was generally OK, with the exception of A Spot of Tea, which was the most annoying thing I've seen in years, and Brand's mustache in that sketch was really disturbing...
I liked the closing sketch - missed opportunities maybe, but the sheer lunacy of Nancy Pelosi stabbing George Washington had me rolling.
Fantastic show for Taran Killam. Hopefully this guy will be around for years. I want to like Vanessa, but she always sounds like she's yelling - she needs to dial it down a bit and let the mics do their work. Major kudos should also go to the costuming and set design people this week - a lot of period pieces this week, and everything looked really good!
"Vacation Giveaway" was god-awful as always. "George Washington" didn't really go anywhere. "A Spot of Tea" was mediocre.
But I really loved the rest of this episode (minus Chris Brown, of course). Brand surprised me right out of the gate; I had no idea his stand-up was so...coherent!
Oy, I forgot to mention why I was so surprised: Aside from Brand's reputation, I saw him on The Late Late Show a few weeks ago, & he was a completely out-of-control, gibbering lunatic who almost broke Craig Ferguson's robot sidekick. Brand on SNL, however, was a total 180 of that.
As I understand it, the writers rewrite Stefon before airtime, so Hader is not always entirely sure how it is going to go. Though, yes, Hader seems to have taken everyone loving him cracking as Stefon as a carte-blance to crack in other sketches.
I've said it before and I'll say it again: DAMN HULU VIDEOS! I can't see them outside the US of A.
"Livin' Single" felt like a peek into the show two seasons from now, and I didn't like what I saw.
Thanks for writing my post! I agree except I'm only tired of Stefon 'cause Hader can not stay in character and I would've ranked Brand's monolouge higher than Mike did.
Brand was much better than I expected, and I totally agree with you on the 10 for the British Movie sketch. And, in Hader's defense, I totally lost it on the "human suitcase" line too.
But I can't quite believe that an SNL that has yet another overused Kristin Wiig recurring character sketch (and so early in the show) could be the top show of the season....
I was definitely surprised at how much I loved Russell, he was great 😀 As for the Bill Hader issue, I don't care what he does cause I love him and he laughs mostly only when he's on the news, and it's okay cause Stefon is my fave 😀
That was definitely worth a 10, and I have seen my fair share of British movies.
Best of the season? Meh, this episode didn't do anything for me. I did like Samberg yelling "SEISMOGRAPH" in a old lady british accent though!
Best of the season???? You need professional help.
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