Saturday Night Live: Amy Adams & One Direction

December 21, 2014 5:42 AM - Season 40, Episode 10

The Christmas episode hits Serial a few times and welcomes back Kristen Wiig and Fred Armisen, with all the good and ill that entails.
posted by Etrigan (21 comments total)

I was worried when Wiig showed up that she'd get a whack at one of her many horrible characters, and lo and behold, it's Garth and Kat, my least favorite bit of hers and my least favorite bit of Armisen's, and that's going some. Seriously, does anyone actually like an improv bit when the entire point of it is that improv fails sometimes? And it ruined what was looking like an uptick in Weekend Update, which I'm now more convinced than ever needs to be radically revamped stat. I know -- I didn't think I could like WU less this season either.

Yet another "White people are uncomfortable dealing with race" skit, this time in the fake commercial.

Cecily Strong as Sarah Koenig was fantastic, the bit itself less so. And Aidy Bryant had another good show. Then Kate MacKinnon turns it up in both of the Ten-to-One weirdnesses as if to say, "Look, bitches, I own this shit. This is my show now. Deal."
posted by Etrigan at 5:53 AM on December 21, 2014 [2 favorites]

I was surprised to find that I liked seeing Dr. Evil again after all these years. I enjoyed the first Austin Powers movie for what it was, but the sequels were terrible. So much going through the motions, retread humor, and crudeness for the sake of being crude. Dr. Evil, though, is a great character as a Blofeld knock-off and perhaps is best used in small doses like this. Four minutes is enough time to hit the major beats of his schtick and then finish before it becomes grating. It'd be like if Jim Carrey decided to reprise Ace Ventura on SNL: four more minutes with Ace could be fun, but I'll pass on another 90 minutes of it (see (or rather, don't) Dumb & Dumber, To).
posted by Servo5678 at 7:39 AM on December 21, 2014 [2 favorites]

That was pretty dreadful on the whole, but I'm glad I stuck it out for Whiskers R We.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 8:15 AM on December 21, 2014

Seriously, does anyone actually like an improv bit when the entire point of it is that improv fails sometimes?

I think it's fine. But I also think the point is that improv succeeds sometimes.

I could watch Cecily Strong as Sarah Koenig all day. She was perfect. Parodying a podcast with a visual piece is kinda tough though and it might've benefited from a slightly different structure.

And as always, stop putting musicals in the monologue please.
posted by dogwalker at 11:08 AM on December 21, 2014

I am increasingly convinced that this will someday be known as the Musical Monologue Era of SNL.
posted by Etrigan at 11:17 AM on December 21, 2014

I am confused. My understanding about the ticket situation is that you can send a postcard in the month of August, and if you are very lucky you get a ticket to one of the next season's shows (either the dress rehearsal or the broadcast version).

So when they feature teeny bopper faves like One Direction or Bieber, where are all these screamy kids coming from? NBC execs? Advertisers? Surely not the people who signed up in August.

Is my understanding of the ticket situation out of date?
posted by potsmokinghippieoverlord at 2:59 AM on December 22, 2014

They also give out stand-by tickets on the day of the show, but according to at least one person, "The majority of seats are reserved for VIP, which includes friends and family of the host, musical guest and cast members. The number of VIPs varies largely from show-to-show and in essence determines how many stand-by ticket holders eventually make it into a live taping."

So probably Bieber and 1D's people make sure their VIP tickets go to the teeny boppers, with a good helping of cast members' family lobbying to get their kids into those shows as well.
posted by Etrigan at 5:06 AM on December 22, 2014 [1 favorite]

I am increasingly convinced that this will someday be known as the Musical Monologue Era of SNL.

This is the "when I was as kid Legos were just bricks and they were better" of late night TV. Musical monologues have always been a thing on SNL.

Yeah, the musical monologue has kind of been done to death but it's to be expected for a Christmas show. This one combined music with the "host gets interrupted" and "former cast member shows up" for an SNL monologue trifecta. I thought they did it well.

I thought Amy Adams felt very comfortable and seemed to be enjoying herself throughout the show. As long as her star status holds up she's a shoe-in for the Five Timers club in a couple more years.

I enjoyed Garth and Kat showing up. Fred Armisen could come back to twiddle his thumbs and I'd be happy about it. I loved watching them improv with each other and try to keep from cracking up. Those are the SNL moments I love and the reason I watch it at 11:30 on Saturday night even though I have a Tivo.

I'm very glad Wiig didn't whip out Gilly or the Target Lady. Both dreadful.

Once again I will reiterate my love for Kate McKinnon. That cat sketch at the end of the show was great.

I didn't see Mike Meyers during the goodnights. I wonder why he didn't stick around.

The Serial bit was dead-on, of course.

All in all I enjoyed this episode and between this one and the Franco episode I'm hoping Lorne gave the writers a come-to-Jesus talk and they've shaped up a bit since the mostly awful stuff at the beginning of the season.
posted by bondcliff at 5:59 AM on December 22, 2014 [1 favorite]

I am increasingly convinced that this will someday be known as the Musical Monologue Era of SNL.

This is the "when I was as kid Legos were just bricks and they were better" of late night TV. Musical monologues have always been a thing on SNL.

Remember how "taking questions from the audience" was the thing back in the '90s for monologues, to the point that a recent host (I forget who) actually made fun of how often he or she had done it in the past? I don't recall off the top of my head the last time they did that, but it seems like it used to be the default option when the host wasn't a stand-up comic. Nowadays, "write a funny little song" seems to be the default option when the host isn't a stand-up comic. I find myself thinking, "Wow, this host must have a terrible singing voice if they're not doing a musical monologue."
posted by Etrigan at 7:59 AM on December 22, 2014

Sara Silverman?
posted by potsmokinghippieoverlord at 9:04 AM on December 22, 2014

This is the "when I was as kid Legos were just bricks and they were better" of late night TV. Musical monologues have always been a thing on SNL.

When I was a kid musical monologues were better because they were Not Gonna Phone it in Tonight.
posted by Gary at 10:28 AM on December 22, 2014 [3 favorites]

Yeah, I'm thinking of the Silverman monologue (which was weird in and of itself, but at least it was uniquely weird).
posted by Etrigan at 10:33 AM on December 22, 2014

It wasn't the worst episode in the world, and Amy Adams was great, but I found this cut-for-time sketch based on a scene from Love Actually funnier than most of the aired sketches. That said, the reappearance of Garth & Kat really highlighted the fact that this new group of cast members are a lot funnier (to me) than Armisen-Wiig-etc days.

Also, someone needs to tell Harry Styles to lose the hat.
posted by everybody had matching towels at 12:31 PM on December 22, 2014

Can't believe they cut the Love, Actually bit and left in the raccoon singers.
posted by misha at 2:04 PM on December 22, 2014

I thought it was a pretty good show overall, I loved the Serial parody, as it was spot-on. When Amy Adams started singing in the monologue, I remember thinking "man, remember how great Kristen Wiig was at this stuff?" and lo and behold she shows up soon after.

Overall, it was a pretty good show, the only baffling moment was when the audience went Beatles-in-1962-apeshit when One Direction cameo'd in that skit. I kept thinking, people still do that? For them?
posted by mathowie at 2:45 PM on December 22, 2014

Personally, I thought Aidy Bryant's dancing was better than One Direction. Not sure why those guys are still on the dance squad.
posted by ckape at 3:02 PM on December 22, 2014

Aww... I loved the raccoon singers!
posted by potsmokinghippieoverlord at 4:22 PM on December 22, 2014 [1 favorite]

I was so relieved they hired extra backup dancers and didn't make the female cast members do it. "Female cast members as backup singers/dancers because we have nothing better for them to do" is my number one can't-stand-that SNL trope.
posted by bleep at 6:37 PM on December 22, 2014

Can't believe they cut the Love, Actually bit and left in the raccoon singers.

I loved the raccoons. It was super stupid and had some jokes that only made sense in hindsight which was more subtle than I feel that they've been able to be lately, it was like weird old SNL to me. Adams was great. Wiig appearance garnered a lot of predictable grousing from me and Garth and Kat is probably my least favorite thing ever to the point where I feel like I have to be missing something because other people clearly like it. And even the Girlfriends Talk Show bit with the same old characters was a little less squirm-inducing and a little more balanced than usual. This show felt like people had fun doing it. One Direction were a lot better last time they were on, but I do appreciate their being willing to actually show up in skits in addition to their songs.
posted by jessamyn at 7:13 PM on December 22, 2014 [1 favorite]

Watching the raccoon singers with closed captioning made the songs even more bizarre and raccoon-y. From now on, I shall refer to the chimney as a fire tube.
posted by potsmokinghippieoverlord at 6:25 AM on December 23, 2014 [1 favorite]

I LOVED the raccoon singers! That was just gloriously weird.
posted by mochapickle at 6:18 PM on December 23, 2014 [1 favorite]