Well, I’m on the left coast and never get to start the tv show threads. Thanks to the lackluster interest and quality of SNL i get to start one! woo!
I caught last night’s show, and it was uncomfortable to watch. Annette Bening literally stared at the cue cards (I assume… her head and eyes were fixed on SOMETHING) in every single sketch she was in. There was almost no interaction with other cast members as she seemingly read the lines. She read the lines, great, of course, not like she was speaking in monotone or something.
But that fixed gaze and immobile head… I really feel bad for her but really… this was horrible. I guess some actors aren’t good at live performances? Did anyone else see this and notice this?
That said, I liked the monster in the room sketch. A near-LOL ensued.
I notice it every single time I watch that show, it’s not just her. I think it has to do with the writing process for the program. The way I hear it, they are re-writing and adjusting the show right up until the last minute, so they don’t get a whole lot of rehearsal.
The one scene that it was most noticable, IMHO was the teacher / student scene. She’s supposed to be all lovey dovey, but is staring off at the cue card instead.
Maybe that’s why the pre-filmed fake commercials and whatnot are usually funnier. I guess it’s a trade-off between the excitement (such as it is) of live tv with a studio audience, and having time to produce a polished piece of work.
I agree that Anette was pretty bad… BUT, I thought the episode has a whole was quite funny. The Apocalypto ad, the monster, the a-holes at the nativity scene, large parts of weekend update, Alec Baldwin’s cameo.
I agree with the last two posters. Bening isn’t much of a host, but some of the skits were pretty good. I always like watching the two A-Holes.
Gwen Stefani was okay when she was with No Doubt (is she still?), but she’s not so great on her own. I fast forwarded her solo stuff on this show. And who the heck was the guy who did the second musical act?
I only watched one or two of the sketches but I noticed the same thing about Bening staring fixedly at the cue cards. It was highly distracting, as it is when other guests do it. Seems like it happens more with sports figures and other non-entertainment-business guests appear, but she’s an acclaimed actress with experience in comedic roles, so you’d expect better.
Frankly I’m not sure why I even bother tuning in to SNL anymore, but I still do, at least to the beginning of the show. If a restaurant served me a shit sandwich every week, I certainly wouldn’t continue to patronize it year after year hoping for something palatable. So why do I remain a sucker for the punishment of SNL’s ever-reliable mediocrity?
I almost can’t stand to watch the “Two A-holes” skits, because they’re just too close to home. I worked at a Starbucks for the past year, and almost every yuppie customer that comes through the line is literally like that - there’s actually very little exaggeration going on there. That either makes it comedically brilliant or too real to be watchable.
The way I hear it, Lorne Michaels does not like the actors to memorize their lines. He hates adlibbibg and feels that if the actors do not have the line memorized, they’re less likely to go off-script.
I’m used to the host looking at cue cards now and then, but she never looked at her coastars!!! That was horribly uncomfortable to watch, and it nearly ruined the actually well-written scetches. The difference when she had to look directly into the camera for the fake commercial was staggering - you could see that she really knew what she was doing and was very good at it.
[/hijack] I hope this is the kind of thing we can look forward to seeing on Studio 60, a show I really want to see about real problems with a live sketch show. I’d love to know what was going through the casts’ minds as they slogged their way through this horrible performance.[/hijack]
Yeah, Annette Bening was way worse than the average guest host as far as looking at cue cards. I don’t know if it’s still the same situation on the show today, but a lot of material I’ve read about SNL says that they are typically doing line rewrites up to the last minute – like, sometimes there will be significant line changes between dress rehearsal and the show – so it is totally pointless to try to memorize lines.
The show overall wasn’t too bad. Definitely not the best of the season, but nowhere near the worst I’ve seen either. The digital short was a bit disappointing. I always love “The Two A-Holes” (“can I check my email?”) as well as a lot of the other bits people have mentioned, particularly the Apocalyto ad, as it was more or less the same reaction MrWhatsit had when he first saw the ads for that movie. (“So, how is Gibson going to work in not-so-subtle anti-Semitism into this one?”)
Did the final skit with the lawyers for cats get abruptly cut off on the west coast too? When I was watching, they cut to one of those pictures of the host that they show before commercials, before Annette Bening was finished delivering the last two lines of the skit. Then when they came back from commercial they showed literally like two seconds of the host on stage waving, and that was the show. It seemed like they accidentally ran long or something.
No really, what the hell was up with Gwen Stefani’s performance? Throughout the part of it that I watched, I just kept thinking, “Well, you’ve got to give her props for trying something, but come on!”.
I liked the “What does Diddy do?” cartoon. I’ve always wondered myself what exactly he does. He just seems to go around living large for no apparent reason.
Gwen Stefani…ugh. She must have some Col. Tom Parker type misleading her or something. El Sharko Jumpo del Tropico.
This was embarassing- she is a very good actress who should at least be able to make the cue card reading less obvious- hell Ludacris did a much better job than she did, and he only recently started acting. Alec Baldwin might as well join the cast, he’s on so much- I think he would be great. The monster sketch was good, I love the “three dorky coworkers have a night out” sketches, but other than that , thr show rated a “What?” two “Ghaa”'s and an “Oh Brother”.