Anytime Saturday Night Live brings on a "young, hip" entertainer, they have a history of dumbing down their material for the mass audience -- which is exactly what happened last night with host Miley Cyrus. It's obvious that there's a concerted effort to appeal to the 16-year-old out there who has never watched SNL before, but was watching last night because Cyrus was hosting -- a Cyrus, I should add, who came off a bit smug at times (her monologue is a good example) and seemed to never really win over the studio audience.
Actually, in some ways it's hard to blame SNL; any show that's been on this long has to cultivate future viewers. Unfortunately, it leaves us, the people who watch every week, with a fairly uninspired show that was more interested in headlines -- "Hey, Miley Cyrus played Justin Bieber! Isn't that wonderful!" -- than decent sketch comedy. Put it this way: I suspect that people who don't really pay attention to SNL, really liked last night's SNL. On to the pretty ugly scorecard...
Sketch of the Night
"Les Jeunes de Paris" (Killam, Pedrad, Cyrus): Frankly, the only thing about last night's episode that made me happy was the fact the "Les Jeunes de Paris" has now officially become a recurring sketch. Perhaps this was also Cyrus's best sketch because she wasn't allowed to speak English. Also: Taran Killam is slowly becoming the star of SNL.
Score: 8.0
The Good
"Weekend Update" (Meyers, Sudeikis, Moynihan): Admittedly, I'm not really sure if this week's "Update" was really that good or just a reprieve from everything else going on around it. Moynihan's Anthony Crispino and Sudeikis' Devil characters are always welcome sights. Meyers' "Winner/Losers" commentary on the Charlie Sheen situation was light-years better than the cold open that already seemed dated (we'll get to that).
Score: 7.5
"Beastly" (Samberg, Cyrus, Pedrad, Brittain): "Did you vote for me because just because I'm the rich, popular, good looking guy? Hell yeah!" Samberg has now portrayed both Sir Ben Kingsley and now Gene Hackman during fake movie trailers during this season of SNL. This time, a handsome man is cursed to a life of looking beastly -- which looks an awful lot like Justin Beiber's roommate from a couple of episodes ago. Also, a Rango reference!
Score: 7.0
"Disney Channel Acting School" (Cyrus, Thompson, Ensemble): This one started off fairly weak but gained momentum as it went along. Placing it into the "good" category was the "mastering of classic Disney Channel moves": "Eating then freezing," "reacting to stinky feet," "spying in a doorway" and "entering on a scooter."
Score: 6.5
"TCM Classics: The Sound of Music" (Armisen, Sudeikis, Ensemble) Not anywhere near as good as Armisen's first entry into this now recurring sketch, The Wizard of Oz. Look, there's an interesting idea here -- placing an oddball into the Von Trapp family -- but ultimately all this sketch comes down to is, "Hey, I'm Hispanic and I speak in a Hispanic accent. Hilarious, right?" In fairness, Armisen was really into this sketch (which isn't on Hulu) -- he even made the Nazis laugh.
Score: 6.0
The Bad
"Duh! Winning! Cold Open" (Hader, Killam, Armisen, Cyrus): SNL was in a tough situation with Charlie Sheen. Sheen obviously had to be addressed but, after a week of an intense media blitz and parodies of that media blitz, by the time SNL joined the fray, it's already dated. And there was something about Hader's impression that was just... off (which is a rare thing to say about Hader). It certainly was nowhere near as good as Jimmy Falllon's impression from mid-week. It just seemed like SNL thought they could get away with just saying "winning" and "tiger blood" and call it a day.
Score: 5.5
"Our Time With Taboo and apl.de.ap" (Thompson, Samberg, Cyrus, Pharoah, Elliott) Here's what this is: This is a bunch of late 20-something and 30-something SNL writers sitting in a room thinking, what would appeal to the 16-year-old viewer that's tuning in this week to watch Miley Cyrus? This had a lot of potential (the idea of the two unknown members of the Black Eyed Peas hosting a show is funny), but this thing hit the wall once Abby Elliott's Khloe Kardashian showed up on stage.
Score: 5.0
"CBS Gurney Month Promo" "We've got more programs that begin with a body bag than any other network!" Kind of a funny idea, I suppose? Just seems NBC is really in no position to be taking shots at another network -- being NBC and all.
Score: 5.0
"Cruise Ship Entertainer" (Cyrus, Wiig, Ensemble): Cyrus plays a cruise ship singer who would rather be anywhere but where she is, prompting her to sing, "You people are gross to me." This should have been better. And it was telling that the actual studio audience was not at all into this one. Perhaps Cyrus was just a little too into and believable in this one -- an example of how the studio audience was just not into her.
Score: 4.5
"New Products" (Cyrus, Wiig): Wiig and Cyrus play pitch people for a new facial cream-rockabilly CD combination. Interesting idea, poor execution.
Score: 4.5
"Miley Cyrus Monologue" (Cyrus, Moynihan, Wiig): Before we get to "The Miley Cyrus Show," the whole joke that Cyrus, as Bieber, would not say the show was "pretty cool" was pretty much ruined by the fact Cyrus blurted that quite expected line first thing in her monologue. Also, Cyrus really wants you to know that she's not Lindsay Lohan or Tiger Woods -- a song that was decently well done but, again, kind of smug.
Score: 4.0
The Ugly
"The Miley Cyrus Show" (Bayer, Cyrus, Sudeikis): Again: Enough, already, with real people meeting the parodies of themselves. We get it! Of course this was coming -- no surprise there. And this is the sketch that's going to (as I've seen already) be the one that makes all of the headlines because it involved a parody of Cyrus and Justin Bieber. But that's it! There's really no joke. The entire sketch is the real Cyrus, as Bieber, mugging for the camera. This is the type of sketch intended for irregular SNL viewers, who are supposed to see the concept and say, "Well, I'll be, that's hilarious, what will they think of next?"
Score: 3.0
(Note: "Baby Spanx" is a repeat from a prior episode and is not included in the scorecard.)
Average Score For This Show: 5.54
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
· Miley Cyrus 5.54
· Jane Lynch 5.31
· Scarlett Johansson 4.69
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