Revolution To Institution

I watched the 36th season premiere of SNL, and, as always, my first thought was they took all summer to come up with this?  You figure they'd have nothing by knockout sketches, but it never works that way.  It wasn't bad, exactly, just sort of blah.

It started--almost too predictably--with a bit mocking Christine O'Donnell.  I suppose they couldn't resist, but often targets that are too easy lead to lazy writing (and a lot of masturbation jokes).

Then Amy Poehler came out and shared her bizarre dream about the show with us.  The dream had a bunch of SNL walk-ons, like Tina Fey and Jimmy Fallon and Justin Timberlake, which you sort of expected with Amy's return.  It wasn't a bad bit, but the show rarely got better.

Because the host was Poehler, we got the return of some of her famous characters--something for which I had no desire.  Certainly I never needed to see the Bronx Beat ladies again, even if it meant Maya Rudolph returned and Katy Perry made fun of her trouble with Sesame Street.  I also had no desire to ever see one-legged Amber.

Speaking of modern controversies, there was also a mock ad about the Ground Zero Mosque that didn't make much sense.

The best and most notable bit had to be Governor Paterson's appearance on Update.  He interrupted a Fred Armisen/Paterson routine that was already going well.  The Governor got big laughs, but I always feel queasy when politicians come on shows to laugh at themselves.  I'd rather have them be pissed off.  The other notable bit was also on Update, where new cast member Jay Pharoah did a good Will Smith impression.  He later did a few solid seconds of Chris Tucker.

The rest sort of runs together.  A bit about small hats.  A parody of The Expendables.  A digital short that didn't score but was at least bizarre.

Yep, it's another season of SNL. Looking forward to Bryan Cranston next week.