Just turned the show off. The Zoom Theatre skit was too much. What the hell is SNL now, an infomercial? Martin kept plugging his show during the Hamas skit and then the zoom bullshit. Maybe the concept of the skit with the zoom camera went over my head but it still felt like a damn commercial.
You didn’t stay tuned long enough to see Prince play? I thought he sounded pretty good.
I really like the opening and the Knick joke in the weekend update was a belly laugh.
The Zoom joke went a long way to get to a punch line.
Shows okay so far.
Jim
Prince surprised me by how good he was!
It was nice to see Prince rocking out again. His guitar playing kicked ass tonight.
I thought Oprah/James Frey sendup was sort of amusing. Other than that, the sketches have been pretty lame. I was hoping for better. Hosting SNL is the one time Steve Martin should be guaranteed to be entertaining. The writing just isn’t very good anymore.
I’m not a Prince fan and I enjoyed it. Real good guitar work.
Is it that the writing is bad, or lazy? I mean, how many times to they go to the well over and over again with stuff? And an opportunity to get the actual Prince to come onto the “Prince Show” in character as comedian Fred Armisen seems to have been passed up.
I’ve been looking forward to this show since I love both Steve Martin and Prince.
It’s not as good as I had hoped.
The Prince/Beyonce skit just ended. I kept expecting the real Prince to make an appearance! Bah! It was terrible.
That sketch sucked. But Prince was really good!
Watching it on high definition. Martin’s hair is as thin as mine now. 
When Armisen’s Prince said he was going to look in the mirror, I thought that it would be an empty frame with the real Prince standing on the other side.
I thought it was an alright episode, but I really do have a whole new respect for Horatio Sanz after seeing his Aaron Neville. I usually really dislike Sanz, but I was really impressed at how well he sang! And when he started laughing it actually seemed natural, unlike his usual I’m-bombing-so-I’ll-laugh-at-myself routine.
On a side note, what was the joke with Alec Baldwin being all beat up? Was that a reference to something?
In the Opening Steve Martin is on a date, his date mentions the Alec is ready to host SNL, tying Steve’s record. Steve races to the studio and chokes Alec and dumps him out a window to protect his record.
Jim
The one part I didn’t see tonight… figures! Thanks!
I turned it off after the “Prince Show” didn’t have Prince in it. The only good part (that I saw) was Sanz as Neville, he did a pretty good job there.
I was hoping this one would have broken it out of it’s slump, with Steve Martin hosting and Maya Rudolph back, but nope.
You seriously think they didn’t ask him? I figure it went something lke this:
PRINCE: (Whisper, whisper)
BEYONCE: Prince does not wish to be in the “Prince Show” sketch.
PRINCE: (Whisper, whisper)
BEYONCE: He is busy inventing a new color.
PRINCE: (Whisper, whisper)
BEYONCE: One that only bees can see.
Prince is notoriously difficult to have a substantive conversation with. Kevin Smith does a hilarious standup routine about the time he was invited to make a documentary about Prince, how it went awry, and how the Purple One spends an awful lot of time on “Planet Prince.”
If that’s the case, then I guess I’ll cut the writers a break. But imagine the comic possibilities of basically doing the mirror scene from Duck Soup with Prince and Armisen. It doesn’t even work on the face of it, which makes it even funnier.
I have to say, that first Prince song was absolutely awesome.
I also have to say, the rest of the show sucked, other than the opening bit wth Alec Baldwin.
Whoever’s doing the sketch writing right now has a tin ear for comedy. The timing is way off on the joke setups, and some of the jokes were so obvious it was painful that they actually attempted them.
I saw an article that said that Seth Meyers has been promoted to head writer. Maybe that was a bad idea.
The online credits say this, as far as the writers: