Saturday Night Live | Season 39 [R]

Only one funny bit in the whole show, but imho -- it was worth it.

Hulu clip here. Just killed me.

 

That was super odd, because I thought her singing during the monologue was actually pretty good. I've not intentionally listened to much of her stuff but I was happily surprised to hear how decent her voice was.

But I completely skipped that second song once I realized she wasn't singing. Pretty much skipped the first one too. That was so high concept I was getting a nose bleed.

 

Biel should be worried about this. She needs to know I'm always here for her.

 

I'm probably 39 seasons behind on this, but does SNL use laugh tracks?

 

I said laugh track, but I was really asking about applause. I know they have applause signs. Those are often visible flashing when they show the crowd. I asked because it sounded like applause was added over the conclusion of the show were everyone is standing around awkwardly hugging each other. Although I could see the flashing applause signs, the crowd didn't appear to be reacting at all.

 

There is only a fraction of the audience visible, right in front of the stage.
There are more bleachers that are well off camera.

 

I've been meaning to post for a while. I was going to get around to watching the closing from that episode I mentioned above again. Oh well. For me, this may be the best season in a while.I actually was hoping they would have done a full song for that Kanye parody.

 

I think this will be the first episode with Sasheer Zamata. I was underwhelmed by the announcement. It later turned into me questioning if my belief that comedians from Indianapolis not being funny was actually true. Maybe it's her voice that annoyed me. Then I read she went to UVa... Things were piling against her so I tried to tell myself time in the Commonwealth could have been a good thing for her. It ended up working out for Tina Fey who also went to that school and later joined UCB. I like Jay Pharoah. He's from VA.

I decided to watch her videos online. Not at all impressed. Wow. She has only had about 3 or 4 jokes for 3 years... so maybe that makes it hard to really judge her, but she didn't impress me and wasn't fun in anything I watched. It's not hard to see why she was chosen. She's safe. There's definitely a bit of irony to a couple of her sketches with her selection.

If Sasheer Zamata was the best Lorne saw, I was beginning to think maybe he and Keenan were right all along.

Then I looked up LaKendra Tookes and Leslie Jones. Both showed a lot more than Zamata. Tookes is the one who could replace Zamata or another cast member. I've never been a big fan of Leslie, but she's a legitimate comedian who has been working for years, touring the country, and I think she may have even had a cable special. Adding those two as writers is more significant than the addition of Zamata although she got the headlines. I hope Zamata shows a lot more than she does in her work that is online.