The breakout comedy star of 2015 is also an award-winning sketch comic and writer, so SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE could hardly do better than to have Amy Schumer as host for the 2d episode of the season.  For the most part, the show seemed to step up its game–even Weekend Update showed signs of a […]

  Chris Rock’s new movie Top Five is a breakthrough for him partly because in it, he finally manages to capture his stand-up comedy persona in a fully-fledged character.  It was too much to hope that SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE, where Rock had a more troubled time as a regular cast member than is generally remembered, […]

  After 40 years of SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE, it’s fair to say that every season is uneven, and so is every episode.  Although it’s generally true that installments hosted by former cast members (this season it was Bill Hader) have the advantage of ready-made comfort zones for the writers and cast, and that hosts with […]

  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 […]

  Host James Franco (and very busy musical guest Nicki Minaj, who turned up in several sketches) had the benefit of one of SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE’s sharper episodes of the season tonight–uneven, of course, but with at least as much good as bad. Things didn’t start off particularly well.  It’s gotten to the point where […]

  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 […]

  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 […]

  Dwayne Johnson is an ideal kind of SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE host:  a big-time movie star with enthusiasm, panache, a sense of humor about himself, and a willingness to be utterly silly.  It’s no surprise that tonight was his 4th time as host, and while his presence wasn’t enough to rescue a typically uneven SNL, […]