SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE had one of the quietest off-seasons in its recent history, with the addition of featured player Jon Rudnitsky as its only major change, so for better and worse, tonight’s Season 41 premiere felt as though it could easily have aired last season. There were a few indications that time has passed.  […]

  Woody Harrelson brought a boatload of Hunger Games co-stars with him (their movie opens Thursday night) as he returned to host SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE for the first time in more than 20 years.  That included Katniss Everdeen herself, who contributed a Jennifer-Lawrence-being-Jennifer-Lawrence moment of so totally muffing a cue carded joke that it threw […]

  It wasn’t until the last few minutes of tonight’s SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE that the show seemed to figure out what to do with this week’s host–which was weird, because Michael Keaton, making his return to SNL after decades, much as he returned to public consciousness with last year’s Birdman, has a wide range that […]

  Matthew McConaughey, one of the rare SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE hosts with nothing to promote, stood out even more in an installment that featured prominent plugs for musical guest Adele and the new Star Wars movie.  Although McConaughey is a Serious Oscar-Winning Actor these days, he’s done plenty of comedy throughout his career, and he […]

  It was an odd SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE all around tonight, starting with the fact that host Chris Hemworth was there to plug The Avengers:  The Age of Ultron, which won’t even open for 2 more months.  Hemsworth isn’t exactly known as a comic stylist, so although he had a few enjoyably goofy moments, the […]

  Amy Adams was the host of 2014’s final new SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE, but although she performed enthusiastsically, the show was dominated by surprise guests and by the pre-tape team, which contributed a couple of gems to the episode.  One was a mock commercial for a new Asian-American doll, which drolly illustrated how paranoid and […]

  The return of Tracy Morgan to SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE after his long convalescence from a devastating auto accident was an event, and the show treated it as such, with guest appearances from Morgan’s 30 Rock co-stars Tina Fey, Alec Baldwin, Jane Krakowski and Jack McBreyer, not to mention Larry David as Bernie Sanders in […]

  It’s Year 40 for SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE, and like many prosperous middle-aged citizens, SNL has no interest at all in shaking up its comfortable life.  Tonight’s season premiere could, with a few cast adjustments, have been the premiere of any season over the past decade.  Even though there were only two franchise sketches on […]