If you’ve ever seen an interview with Helen Mirren, then you’d know that in addition to being a world-class actress, she also has a wicked sense of humor.  She has the twin traits of being both regal enough to play Queen Elizabeth II (The Queen) and versatile enough to play the proprietor of a Nevada brothel (Love Ranch) or a retired assassin (Red).  It’s hard to pinpoint her, she’s a bit of a chameleon and that will hopefully serve her well as she hosts SNL for the first time.

Foo Fighters are one of the last remaining rock and roll bands that really rock, with shredding guitar solos and heavy drums.  I always enjoy their music when I hear it, but I’ve probably only listened to two or three of their albums all the way through.  Dave Grohl is a musical genius, though.  The dude was the drummer in Nirvana, lead singer for Foo Fighters, and did so much work with so many other bands, including Queens of the Stone Age.  Also, he’s hilarious and I’m sure we’ll see him in a sketch or two this week.

Let’s go to the DVR!

Cold Open – Every single time I see Fred Armisen as Barack Obama, I’m underwhelmed before the skit even starts.  The problem is not that Armisen does a bad impersonation, it’s that Obama is really boring.  SNL – and other comedy shows – still haven’t figured out an angle on Obama.  Will Ferrell didn’t impersonate Bush so much as create a caricature of him that was good enough.  Same with Dana Carvey and his Bush senior or Darrell Hammond and his Clinton.  Look at Aykroyd’s Jimmy Carter or Chevy Chase’s Gerald Ford.  They weren’t so much about getting the voices right, but about finding one trait that can be exposed and exaggerated.  And with Obama, they still haven’t figured out how to make him funny.  Instead, Armisen plays him as just a regular guy who talks somewhat slowly.  There isn’t a single thing that we come back to, week after week, hoping that Armisen as Obama will say or do a specific thing.  Anyway, this skit was a presidential address from Obama about the recent government almost shut-down.  It was a snooze, as usual when it comes to Obama skits.  2/10

Monologue – Wow, how great does Helen Mirren look for 65?  And right off the bat, she nails an Elton John-queen joke.  And then shows off pictures of her hot body.  Then the male cast members come out in sailor outfits to assist her in a song about her being a “dame.”  It was a pretty cute number, nothing special, but Mirren seemed really comfortable and committed, which bodes well.  Overall, not a very memorable monologue, though.  5.5/10

Mort Mort Feingold – Andy Samberg does play a stereotypically Jewish accountant to the stars.  Basically, it’s an excuse to have the entire cast come out and do their impressions of celebrities while Samberg over-emotes in a way that is somewhat funny.  The celebs rotate in and out, so each cast member gets a line or two.  So we have Paul Brittain playing James Franco, Abby Elliott, Vanessa Bayer, and Nasim Pedrad as the Kardashians, Taran Killam as Ricky Martin, Jay Pharoah killing it as Will Smith, Bill Hader and Helen Mirren as Tim Burton and Helena Bonham Carter, Paul Brittain returning as Johnny Depp, and Armisen doing his Gaddafi.  Outside of Pharoah and Brittain, there weren’t really any memorably great impressions, although I’m always a huge fan of Elliot, Pedrad and Bayer’s Kardashian sisters.  I liked the idea of sending up Burton and Carter, but I don’t think they quite got it outside of the costumes.  It was an enjoyable skit, for the most part, though.  Easy to sit through.  6/10

Digital Short – This week it’s devoted entirely to the magical powers of Helen Mirren’s breasts.  Nasim Pedrad requests to “touch ’em” and Mirren allows her, which then leads to Nasim in ecstasy as she has the strangest dream sequence/montage I’ve ever seen.  Then she goes to a place better than heaven…”Helen Mirren’s titties.”  And sure enough, Dave Grohl’s there too.  It was a very short short this week.  The montage sequence is hilarious and if you’ve ever wanted to see Kristen Wiig motorboat Helen Mirren…well, your sure has finally come in.  7.5/10

Fox and Friends – Taran Killam, Vanessa Bayer, and Bobby Moynihan playing the airhead hosts of the familiar Fox News morning show.  I think Bayer’s take on Gretchen Carlson is pretty spot-on.  Killam is a little over-the-top in this one, but Moynihan is great in this one.  I love his misunderstanding of the word ‘eclectic.’  Helen Mirren comes on as a crazy person who is “proud to be an American” and is terrified of “reverse anchor babies.”  And that’s it from your Academy-Award winning host, really?  This skit is going on too long.  Although I liked the scroll at the end, which was all the “facts” they got wrong and if you look closely, one of them is “Cell phones do not cause chlamydia.”  It was a stupid skit that dragged on a bit, but it was tolerable and got enough things right for me to give it a pass.  5.5/10

Mary Shelley/Frank Stein – Helen Mirren plays the famous author. celebrating the publication of her novel with some friends at her house.  Then her landlord, “Frank Stein,” shows up and bears an uncanny resemblance to the Frankenstein monster, bolts in his neck at all.  Armisen plays Frank Stein and takes offense at the book, saying that he doesn’t appreciate being made fun of.  It’s a pretty funny idea, but it doesn’t really go anywhere.  It’s a little repetitive and has just one real joke.  Paul Brittain comes out as hunchback named Igor, Frank’s son.  The ending kinda makes it work.  Gotta give it points for a clever idea.  6/10

Foo Fighters – They’re singing a song off their new album called “Rope.”  It’s got a pretty good riff, a little bit slower in tempo.  Hey, it looks like Pat Smear’s back in the band.  I didn’t realize that.  The Foos have a lot of energy and always put on a good show, jumping around and going nuts, but I’m not sold on this song as a great lead single the way something like “The Pretender” or “All My Life” in terms of the later output, but it’s a solid enough jam.  7/10

Weekend Update – Update’s on only forty minutes into the show tonight, which is about five or ten minutes earlier than usual.  We better get a Stefon sighting since there’s a three week break after tonight and that would mean like three months with no Stefon.  Do they not realize that that character is gold?  “It is reported that Kate Middleton will have six hairstylists helping her on her wedding day.  And if I understand the role of ‘princess’ correctly, then all of those stylists will be cartoon bluebirds.”  Bill Hader comes on as James Carville to talk about the government almost-shutdown.  I appreciate Hader’s Carville impression, which is the perfect sort of SNL impression, but I never find his appearances that funny.  Right off the bat, he’s got a Mambo No. 5 reference and talks about how he was raised by a family of eels.  The unfortunate thing is that if Hader is coming on as Carville, then he almost surely isn’t coming on as Stefon…DAMN YOU, LORNE MICHAELS!  GIVE ME STEFON!  Also, we’re spending way too much time with James Carville.  I’ve noticed the trend on Update these days seems to be to let Meyers do only like three or four jokes before bringing in another guest.  I think Meyers should look at Norm MacDonald’s Update and see how he just crushed like twenty or twenty-five jokes every week.  I love Meyers, I just want to see more of him.  Kristen Wiig comes out as a flight attendant from that Southwest Airlines flight where the roof blew off the thing.  Her hair is straight up like Marge Simpson and she still has her oxygen mask around her neck.  When Meyers asks her when she knew something was wrong and she goes, “I noticed the roof of the plane wasn’t there the way it had been.”  “I’m one of those ‘funny’ flight attendants, so I said, ‘well at least this flight isn’t BOEING.'”  I don’t know why, but I’m actually enjoying this.  I thought that was pretty clever.  Meyers kills a couple jokes about prostitutes accepting credit cards in Pittsburgh and then we’re off to another guest, Jean K. Jean.  This is actually my favorite character that Kenan Thompson does, the French Def Jam comedian who dances at the end of every joke.  “You know what they say about French parties, right?  They start with crudites and they end with nuditays!”  I think my favorite part of these appearances is watching Seth Meyers dance in his seat while Kenan stands and grooves.  “A couple in Michigan is planning to walk more than 2500 miles to their wedding in Las Vegas this fall.  No word on whose idea it was.  But it wasn’t his.”  Not a bad Weekend Update, not a great one, and it really could have used some Stefon.  6/10

The Best of Both Worlds with Hugh Jackman – Andy Samberg is playing Hugh Jackman, “Both the most masculine and the most feminine man in the world.”  This is already hilarious.  He’s the guy who plays Wolverine and the guy hosts the Tony’s.  He brings out Taran Killam as Gerard Butler, another man who has TWO SIDES! playing The Phantom of the Opera and the lead in 300.  TWO SIDES!  And wow, Samberg is breaking!  He never breaks!  Kenan Thompson comes out as Ice Cube, gangster rapper and star of family flicks like Are We There Yet?  TWO SIDES!  Helen Mirren comes out as Julie Andrews, kind and cute musical superstar.  Two sides?  Doesn’t appear so until her tea comes out wrong and she murders her assistant with the help of Ice Cube, blood spraying everywhere.  TWO SIDES!  Samberg breaks again towards the end, a sign of how funny the skit was.  This was one of the best skits that SNL has done in a while.  It had a clever idea, a clear focus, and shadings of a plot.  Great job.  9/10

Under Underground Records – This is one of my favorite repeated skits.  Basically, it’s just a collage of randomly assorted nonsense thrown together in a jumble.  It’s a commercial promoting the Crunk-Ass Easter Festival that will “Give Jesus Nightmares!”  It’s got “DJ Vlade Divac” and “Eagle Eye Cherry” and the eggs are scrambled!  Jay Pharoah is DJ George Costanza in bunny ears.  I can’t even keep up with the weirdness in this, but it’s worth watching.  I mean, they’re gonna put the Chilean miners back in the mine!  8.5/10

The Roosevelts – A parody of the History Channel’s scuttled Kennedys mini-series.  We learn all about FDR’s dirty secrets, like how FDR (Hader) was talked into using a wheelchair to get him elected by Eleanor (Mirren).  And how Eleanor convinced Hitler to start the war when all he wanted to do was paint.  Armisen plays producer Joel Surnow who claims they had a historian on set.  Then Brittain comes on as the historian to say that he was “on the set, but mostly as an object of ridicule and derision.”  Abby Elliott comes on as Marilyn Monroe and makes out with Helen Mirren!  Basically, that seemed to have been the point of the whole skit.  But for me, the skit is best when Paul Brittain just shakes his head at all of the inaccuracies.  Good idea, could’ve had better execution.  6/10

Perspectives Photo Studios – Another short that opens with Kristen Wiig and Nasim Pedrad at a bar.  Wiig talks about how disappointed she is because the guy she’s seeing sent her a picture of his penis and it looked so small.  Cut to Jason Sudeikis, who talks about how that won’t be a problem for men anymore with Perspectives Photo Studios.  They use cutting-edge photographic techniques to enhance the size of your penis.  Or use another dude’s wang.  This is a pretty clever commercial.  Seth Meyers comes on as himself, talking about how he sends pictures of his “peen to every lady in his phonebook” when he’s not doing Update.  Stupid, but funny enough.  7.5/10

Foo Fighters Again – This time they did a song that is apparently called “Walk” that I’m already more impressed with than I was with “Rope.”  It’s a slow-build song that is more closely aligned with a song of theirs like “Everlong” or “My Hero.”  I really dig this one, might even download it.  8.5/10

Bongo’s Clown Room -Sudeikis is playing the DJ/hype man at a strip club.  He’s spouting strange comments about how he’s been sober for a week and then the female castmembers come out and dance awkwardly, with Pedrad disinfecting the pole as she dances.  “We want to apologize to y’all for the stray dogs in the parking lot.  Looked like one was giving birth.”  Some of the jokes are funny, some fall flat.  But Elliott, Pedrad, Wiig, and Mirren pole-dancing is pretty funny.  It went a bit too long, though.  5.5/10

Final Grades:

Helen Mirren – My only complaint with Mirren’s hosting is that she didn’t seem to be used nearly enough.  She appeared to be absent for long stretches or her roles in skits would be reduced to doing two or three lines.  Other than the Frankenstein skit and, to a lesser extent, The Roosevelts one, she wasn’t the lead character in any skit.  It seemed that, rather than building a show around Helen Mirren, they fit Mirren into skits they already had, save a few.  Mirren was great when she was used, though, so I can’t blame her, but I feel like the sample size was pretty small.  8/10

Foo Fighters – Great band.  Liked the first song, really liked the second song.  They’re still rocking sixteen years after their inception, a remarkably long run for a 90s rock band.  8/10

The rest of the cast – Brittain and Killam got a lot of burn tonight, which is a good thing.  Wish there was more Pharoah, Pedrad, and Elliott.  Wiig was used sparingly.  Hader was used frequently.  Hard to pick an MVP tonight of the castmembers, but I think I’ll go with Samberg for the Hugh Jackman skit.  7/10

The writing – Overall pretty solid.  The only stinker was the open.  The rest was mostly middling, but the Hugh Jackman skit killed it and there were a few other good moments.  Good episode overall.  7.5/10

And as for myself, I give a solid 7.

See you guys in three weeks for Tina Fey’s return to SNL!

Zach Galifianakis is hosting SNL for the second time in two years and last year, he was excellent.  He gave one of the best monologues I can remember, which was basically part of his great stand-up act, and he’s adept embodying oddball characters.  He’s promoting The Hangover 2, which I’m strangely excited about, and I wonder if we’ll see a reference to that movie or if any of his co-stars will show up.  Either way, I’m excited about the return of Galifianakis.  I wonder if he’ll shave his beard again.

I apologize to the legion of Jessie J fans out there – if they exist – but I have no idea who she is or what kind of music she makes.  But I’ll give it a shot and see if it’s any good.  It’ll be fun to come to a music artist without any prejudices or preconceptions.

Okay, let’s get to it.

Cold Open – Kenan Thompson and Jason Sudeikis as Greg Gumbel and Jim Nantz in a “selection Sunday” parody, where instead of showing the brackets for March Madness, they’re doing brackets for the craziest people.  On Moammar Gadhafi: “He looks like Tony Shalhoub had a baby with ET.”  Pretty clever idea and the writing already seems sharper this week.  Armisen is on, doing his great Gadhafi.  Another Gadhafi joke: “A fat sleepy baby in a ton of blankets.”  Samberg is doing Dick Vitale, the most annoying sportscaster who has ever lived. which is actually pretty spot-on.   “He’s like Stanley Tucci snorted an aderrall.”  Kristen Wiig as Melissa Leo…wow, I guess Leo did a good job making herself known outside the indie world by being crazy at the Oscars.  “Nicolas Cage, who always looks like he just witnessed a murder.”  And of course we have Bill Hader as Charlie Sheen on his live webcast, saying that the pyramids were built by the Wayans brothers.  This was easiest the most enjoyable and consistently funny cold open in months.  Great concept, delivered well.  8.5/10

Monologue – “All week I was thinking to myself: don’t screw this up, fatty.  Actually that was a text from my mother.”  Zach actually looks pretty good, like he’s shed a couple pounds.  “I wear a lot of Axe bodyspray.  But I live in a black neighborhood and it’s called ‘Ask’ bodyspray.  And if you don’t get that joke, you’re not racist.”  “The only time it’s good to yell out ‘I’ve got diarrhea’ is when you’re playing Scrabble.”  Wow, Zach is just crushing this monologue right now.  I really think SNL should always let comedians do their routines.  If they’re gonna hire a comedian to host, they might as well let them do what they’re best at and Galifianakis does one of the greatest droll and matter-of-fact deliverers ever, almost on a par with Steven Wright.  Zach takes off his clothes and he’s dressed as Annie and singing “Tomorrow” while doing his big board shtick, ripping off the pages that saying things like, “I was bullied as a teenager.”  Then the next one says: “By first graders.”  So much energy, so much commitment, great jokes…folks, this is how you do an SNL monologue.  Best of the year so far, easy.  9.5/10

The Talk – Abby Elliott, Vanessa Bayer, Kristen Wiig, and Nasim Pedrad as Leah Remini, Sara Gilbert, Julia Chen, and Sharon Osbourne respectively on the View rip-off morning talk show.  Pedrad’s Sharon Osbourne and Elliott’s Remini are my favorite impressions, they’re really good.  Everyone is reverential of Osbourne and everything she does, with Remini calling her “a human Albert Einstein.”  Elliott tripped over a couple of lines, whoops.  This skit is pretty funny, but it’s already a bit long and we haven’t even had Galifianakis yet.  There he is, as a man wearing a “View” t-shirt and asking when Barbara Walters is coming out.  Bill Hader comes on the show as Steven Tyler.  I haven’t seen American Idol this year and I don’t plan on it, but Hader’s Steven Tyler is pretty good, not one of his best impressions.  Galifianakis is being massively under-utilized in this skit, which is its biggest weakness.  It started strong, but wound up being pretty mediocre.  5.5/10

The Original Kings of Catchphrase Comedy – I never know what to call it when it’s a film, but it’s not called a digital short.  Either way, this is one of those, which is about four comedians that all have their own catchphrases and sign-off lines.  Glad to see Paul Brittain as Goran, the Croatian comedian.  Kenan doing the “eatin’ dookie’ bit is hilarious and I wonder if Kenan has found the best character for him: a bad comedian.  Bobby Moynihan wonders why he can’t get a McDonald’s breakfast and Zach Galifianakis just plays his airhorn over and over again.  Love seeing Seth Meyers in a skit, as “Boston Powers.”  I love it when they have skits where almost every castmember participates and gets a chance to create a character.  This was not the greatest short film ever, but it was pretty good and I enjoyed myself.  7/10

Next Week – Elton John is hosting and is the musical guest. on April 2nd  Wow, that’s a lot of Elton.  Good thing he’s an amazing singer/pianist.  Don’t know how he’ll do with the rest of his duties, but I’m sure it’ll be memorable.

Scared Straight – Ugh, one of my least favorite recurring sketches.  This and the Target lady are the two skits that make me roll my eyes and cringe.  This is the skit where Kenan Thompson yells in peoples’ faces for six minutes.  Hilarious.  This time Galifianakis comes on with him, dressed as Hannibal Lecter, as a guy who used to be an accountant for Nabisco before he started eating people.  Galifianakis is trying his best, but he can only do so much with a skit that’s just not a strong one.  If I wasn’t doing this recap, I would just fast forward right past this.  Couldn’t we have more Paul Brittain and Jay Pharoah instead of this?  The audience seems to be enjoying this, at least.  To be fair, this is one of the better installments of this skit.  3/10

Digital Short – Zach Looks For a New Assistant.  Galifianakis is interviewing children for the position of his assistant.  It looks like the kids have no idea that this is a joke.  One kid says he like’s Usher and Galifianakis goes, “Usher is Justin Bieber’s dad, right?”  Galifianakis picks up a stapler and uses it as a telephone until the girl informs him that it’s not a telephone.  Then he uses a fart machine, trying to get one kid to laugh, but the kid just keeps shaking his head and going, “not funny.”  This was a quick, clever, and very Galiafanakis-ish short.  7.5/10

Jessie J – Well, she’s attractive even though she’s dressed like an idiot and wearing so much make-up that she looks like she’s trying to emulate Jocelyn Wildenstein’s style.  She has a nice voice, but this song is not good.  It’s so disposable.  It seems like she was cynically designed by record execs.  “We want Amy Winehouse, but a with a little bit more of a hip hop bent.”  Or like they said, “We want Lily Allen part two.”  This is silly.  3/10

Weekend Update – I could use some Stefon in my life, especially since the show won’t come back until April 2nd, but I don’t think it’s gonna happen.  Seth Meyers starts off with a couple of weak jokes about Obama’s bullying and the NFL lockout, then a pretty solid joke combining the Pope, Jesus, and Watson the computer.  Kristen Wiig comes out as Julie Taymor to talk about getting fired from the Spider-man musical and she’s singing the opening of The Lion King.  I feel bad for Julie Taymor, sort of.  I’d probably feel worse if she didn’t come across as being incredibly pretentious.  Or if I liked a single one of her movies.  Wiig isn’t doing anything outrageous here, which is fitting because Taymor isn’t an easy person to impersonate.  Meyers says there are claims that she doesn’t know anything about the source material, which she refutes.  “I know everything there is to know about the Spider-man.”  “I know Spider-man’s secret identity is Peter Jessica Parker.”  Then she sings a song called “Rise Above,” which is pretty funny.  Wiig is always on point when she’s singing.  Moving on.  “According to a new study, men with deeper voices are more likely to be suspected of a cheating in a relationship.  Also suspected?  Men with suddenly high voices.”  This is a good one: “Police in Alaska are warning visitors to not approach any wild moose after a woman who tried to pet one was kicked in the chest.  ‘No, yeah, we know,’ said absolutely everybody else.”  Andy Samberg comes on as “Liam, the teenager who just woke up.”  The weird thing is that Samberg looks just like me when I would wake up in the middle of the night ten years ago.  He’s supposed to talk about Obama’s energy policy, but instead he talks about the dreams he just had.  This is not the best Update guest or the best Samberg character.  While singing about Peter Falk and wet dreams to the tune of “Oops I Did it Again,” Samberg almost loses it, which is enjoyable because Samberg almost never breaks character.  He’s got one of the strongest constitutions on the show, but he almost broke for a second.  Seth Meyers ends Weekend Update on a serious note, with a plea to donate money to the Earthquake-relief efforts in Japan.  Classy move.  Not the strongest update of the season, but certainly pretty good and fairly short.  6.5/10

Noodles – Galifianakis and Wiig play parents who have to inform their kids that Noodles, the dog, has died.  They tell their three kids – played by Pedrad, Moynihan and Elliott – that he’s on a farm somewhere upstate eating avocados fresh from the tree.  Pedrad picks up on the lie and says that unless there’s been a drastic climate tree, there’s no way there are avocado trees upstate.  The parents keep changing their story, trying to get the kids to believe that Noodles died.  “Noodles was killed by the Latin Kings.”  “The Latin Kings haven’t been active in this area for years.”  “Okay, Noodles hung himself.”  Galifianakis and Wiig then tell the truth: Noodles died from auto-erotic asphyxiation and then explain the practice to their children, complete with a copy of his dog porn magazine.  Then Hader brings the dog back, informing everyone that the dog isn’t dead, but was merely in a coma.  Then it gets even weirder, with Kenan as the voice of Noodles, singing “Luck Be a Lady.”  This skit definitely gets bonus points for being so bizarre, but it was slow going for a while and there weren’t that many laughs.  6/10

Celebrity Scoop – Kristen Wiig and Fred Armisen play the hosts of a Winnipeg-based Entertainment Tonight type show.  Zach Galifianakis is one of their reporters.  They don’t show pictures of people canoodling because that’s the “Canadian way.”  Galifianakis elongates every “o” and all of them, as the skit goes on, are starting to sound more and more Irish rather than Canadian.  Bill Hader comes on as the fashion correspondent.  Basically the skit is based on the stereotype that Canadians are really nice.  This skit is going on really long considering there is only one joke and it was beaten into my head within the first thirty seconds.  This might have been an interesting concept, but there’s not a whole lot to do with it.  This is getting painful.  2/10

Jessie J Again – Wow, that’s some outfit.  What is with modern female singers dressing in underwear?  What hath Lady Gaga wrought?  Not that I’m complaining.  Anyway, once again Jessie J has a really nice voice, even if she’s intent on proving that point a little too much with lots of flashy singing flourishes.  This song is really terrible, though.  As a pop song, it has no hook and it’s difficult to get into a rhythm with it.  Sorry, Jessie J, you’re just not for me.  2/10

Corn Syrup Producers of America – It’s another short film.  This one is at a birthday party, where Kristen Wiig tries to explain to Pedrad that corn syrup is bad, but then gets rocked by Pedrad.  “Should I trust scientists or stay-at-home mom Sheila who drinks wine at 10am?”  This was actually pretty funny and succinct.  I liked it.  7.5/10

The Titanic’s Women and Children – Zach Galifianakis dressed as a woman so he can get into the lifeboat that is reserved solely for women and children and isn’t fooling anybody.  Galifianakis then beats away a man who tries to get into the boat.  It turns out that Galifianakis is the captain.  They read from his journal: “Iceberg straight ahead, I think I’ll blast through that sucker.”  This is just not a good sketch.  But it ends with a pretty bizarre epilogue that I enjoyed.  3/10

Goodbyes – Whoa!  Galifianakis shaved the sides of his head, apologizing for the fact that they didn’t have time for the “Mr. T” sketch.  It’s becoming a recurring thing for Galifinakis to shave parts of his body on SNL…what’s next?  10/10 for shaving his head to look like Mr. T.

Final Grades:

Zach Galifianakis – He was excellent, but he was let down by some of the material.  The Digital Short could have been stronger and I think that was probably mostly his idea, but the monologue was the best I’ve seen all year.  Next time they need to find some sketches where he can embody some more specific characters rather than shoe-horning him into skits that could have been written weeks, months or years ago.  Either way, I’d be happy to see him come back once again.  9/10

Jessie J – Sorry, not a fan.  She was too derivative of other, better artists despite her nice voice.  2.5/10

The rest of the cast – Got to see Paul Brittain, which was a plus, but there was an absence of Jay Pharoah.  The MVP would probably be Nasim Pedrad, who was in a lot of the sketches and made the most of her time.  Wiig is a close second.  Kenan and Hader are tied for third.  Let’s get Stefon back next time, guys!

As for myself, I whipped through this pretty well, so I give myself a 7/10.

What’d you guys think?

I first became aware of Russell Brand, like a lot of Americans, thanks to his appearance in the wonderful Forgetting Sarah Marshall.  Since then, I’ve come to appreciate his presence – whether it’s in movies, on talk shows, or hosting events like the VMAs.  I just find his manner to be refreshing.  He’s thoughtful, erudite, and unbelievably crass.  But his vulgarity doesn’t come from a mean-spirited place.  Rather, there’s an innocence to him that makes him appealing even when he acts like a buffoon.  The movie Get Him to the Greek works so well because although Aldous Snow does some despicable things throughout the course of the movie, we sense that deep down he’s a sweet person.  And that’s all thanks to Brand because he brings that to the table.  He is lewd, but in the most lovable way, and it’s not something that can be learned.  It’s just something he was born with, a natural charisma that attracts people to him.  Although he hasn’t had a chance to really prove it, I think he might have a wonderful range that will extend far beyond comedy.  But for now, let’s see how he does on SNL.

As for Chris Brown…um, not too psyched about that part.

Let’s go to the videotape (or DVR)!  (Please let Stefon make an appearance…)

Cold Open – Jason Sudeikis playing Bill O’Reilly and Fred Armisen doing his bland Obama.  It’s a parody of the Super Bowl interview that O’Reilly did with Obama.  This whole sketch is built around the premise that O’Reilly is a pompous, egotistical blowhard.  Um, thanks for that info SNL, would have never guessed.  It’s definitely a skit that takes the easy and safe approach to the material.  The truth of the matter is that SNL has always been (and probably always will be) a left-leaning program that has done a pretty good job at taking shots at both the Dems and the GOP.  But, in this skit, the really interesting take would be to show Obama as the opportunist in this.  The real problem is that he sat down with O’Reilly to begin with, therefore legitimatizing this moron.  But what is Obama’s motivation in doing so?  And before the Super Bowl?  I think that’s the core idea that would have been funnier to explore than simply showing O’Reilly being condescending to a sitting President.  Anyway, it’s a middling skit that is mildly amusing.  5/10

Monologue – Brand is clean-shaven, looks different…almost respectable.  Did he wash his hair??  Jeez, I guess fame is getting to him.  Anyway, Brand mentions that he’s more famous in England than he is in the states.  Although, I’m not sure that’s really true anymore.  I mean, who doesn’t know Brand in the USA?  “In England, tight pants means you’re famous.”  Brand is really good at pointing out the differences between England and the US, but he’s never been as incisive as someone like Eddie Izzard when it comes to that topic.  He’s pretty much just blathering on.  It doesn’t feel like anybody actually wrote this monologue, but someone just said, ‘Hey Russell, just go up there and gab about whatever comes to mind for five minutes.’  He’s stumping for Colin Firth to win the Oscar, which makes me a little sad.  But at least he supports Portman for Best Actress.  He says Portman prepared for a few months, but he prepared for his sex-addicted, drug-addicted role in Get Him to the Greek for twenty years.  This monologue is all over the place.  This is why I prefer Brand in the movies or in his book than his stand-up.  He’s funny and all, but he’s way better when he’s given some limits because he can stretch the boundaries while staying on point rather than just being “long-winded” as Bill O’Reilly taught me.  Of course this monologue wouldn’t be complete without a Katy Perry reference.  It’s rare that stand-ups do well in the SNL monologues because they insist on doing their act.  Zach Galifiankis was the only one who did his routine during the monologue in recent years and knocked it out of the park.  I’ve written so much about this because I’m utterly bored by Brand’s monologue.  3/10

Gublin and Green, Attorney at Law – This was really not funny.  It’s a one-joke commercial about the Spider-man musical and how many injuries have occurred during the previews.  It’s really no different than countless fake ambulance-chasing ads they’ve done over the years, except with a few references to the Spider-man musical.  Again, this is an instance of SNL choosing the easy joke without going any deeper.  This show is off to a pretty terrible start.  3/10

Ultimate Vacation Giveaway – Kristen Wiig is playing an overly excited Travel Channel correspondent who is about to give away a vacation to a white trash dude played by Russell Brand.  She’s super stoked about giving it away and Brand is not excited at all, just sipping his beer.  Uh-oh, this is dying.  Brand’s accent is pretty good, but I’m almost embarrassed for Wiig right now.  She’s giving so much of herself to this part and this skit is going nowhere.  Where are the jokes here?  I like Wiig and Brand so much, but Brand is given nothing to do and Wiig is just overplaying this and hoping for laughs.  They show past winners going crazy.  Taran Killam pees his pants, that’s kinda funny.  I can’t believe that they have Russell Brand as the host and this is one of the skits they picked.  This made it out of dress?  Really, really bad.  1/10

Don’ You Go Rounin’ Roun to Re Ro – Finally something funny!  This is actually pretty brilliant on a few different levels.  This is a parody of hard-nosed British blue-collar crime dramas.  Hader and Armisen have accents so thick that you can’t understand a thing they say.  Hader is so great, saying each of his unintelligible lines with such conviction that it’s easy to believe he’s saying something even though it’s all gibberish.  Russell Brand shows up and he is the only one doing caricature in this skit, probably because he’s making fun of his own accent to a certain extent.  Nasim Predrad is great in this too, as Hader’s girlfriend.  But it’s also a pretty great commentary on how critics in the states go nuts for these kinds of films.  Really solid clip.  In lieu of a digital short?  My guess is yes.  8/10

Next Episode (March 5th) – THE STROKES!!!  They are my favorite band and one of the most important musical acts of my generation.  Their new album is coming out March 22nd and their new single is already out and it’s called Under Cover of Darkness and if you like the Strokes, you’ll like this song.  I absolutely cannot wait to see them on March 5th, I’m already counting down the days.  Oh yeah, Miley Cyrus is hosting…whatever.

Royal Taster – Taran Killam is playing the king’s taster.  The king is played by Russell Brand.  The king assures the taster that he’s safe within these walls, despite the fact that he’s had death threats.  The chef then comes in to be berated by the king, who had just killed the chef’s whole family for making the beef too tough.  Also, the chef is next in line to be king if the king dies.  Needless to say, the taster is worried.  Hader is the chef.  Everybody is ridiculously over the top in the skit, trying to be as loud as possible to cover up for the fact that the writing is pretty weak.  I think the premise of the sketch is ripe for lots of possibilities, but the writers have gone a more simple route.  The only funny part is Hader getting close to Brand’s face and poking at him with his nose, causing Brand to nearly lose it.  And the ending, which is fairly close to brilliant.  Wow.  That ending really saves that skit and makes it something subversive and worthwhile.  6.5/10

Chris Brown – As with last week’s performer (Linkin Park), this is just not my thing.  To me, Chris Brown is like the homeless man’s Usher.  He can dance well, which makes his performances easy to watch, but the music is the worst kind of pop.  It’s derivative and boring.  It sounds like he hired Ke$ha’s producer.  But I gotta give him props for his dancing.  3/10

Weekend Update – Starts off with a strong joke about Hosni Mubarak taking over for Regis.  Seth Meyers makes a great point about pictures of yourself with the camera in the picture.  A nice joke about Christina Aguilera’s Super Bowl performance.  Fred Armisen comes on as Mubarak.  “30 years in power and all I have to show for it is 70 billion dollars of the Egyptian people’s money.”  “Basically, I was trying the old Jedi mind trick.”  I like Armisen’s take on Mubarak.  Now that he’s stepped down and Patterson is no longer governor, I’m sad that Armisen’s takes on these guys will no longer be necessary.  He really comes from the Dana Carvey school of impressions, which means that he doesn’t get the voices note-perfect or anything, he just finds one trait that he can hang on to and bases it on that, building an entirely original and new character out of it.  Solid joke about the AOL/Huffpost merger, although that whole saga has been over-reported.  Bottom line about that merger: I DON’T CARE.  A joke about a woman who returned her dog because it clashed with her curtains doesn’t go over too well, but I thought was pretty funny.  Wow, I actually thought Jay Pharoah WAS Lil’ Wayne for a second.  Taran Killam – who is getting a lot of airtime – comes out with him as Eminem to perform a  really inappropriate Valentine’s Day song.  Pharoah gets everything right about Lil’ Wayne, except for the rapping part.  It’s hard to rap exactly like someone else, but Pharoah misses the mark slightly there.  Then again, he’s so good ordinarily that I’m probably holding him to a higher standard.  Killam is a little closer to the mark with Eminem, but still doesn’t quite get there.  Still, it’s a funny idea and a sign of the changing musical landscape.  Meyers: “There’s no nice thing you can say to a woman that ends in ‘knife.'”  Nice joke about Lady Gaga: “I think the most surprising part of this story is that she has sex in a bed.  Oh my lord, Stefon is coming on!  WOO HOO!!!  He deserves his own section.  The score for update is 7/10

Stefon – YES YES YES.  Best character on SNL right now.  He needs his own movie, I would totally watch it.  I can’t even keep up with all these classic Stefon-isms.  Let’s see if Hader loses it this time.  “New York’s hottest club is BOOOOOOOOOF.”  “Pugs, geezers, do-wop groups, a wise old turtle that looks like Quincy Jones.”  “Giz-blow the coked up Gremlin!”  Oh man, I’m dying here, he did the Gizmo song!  “Fuji Howser, M.D.” made Hader lose it a bit.  “Jewpids?”  “Jewish cupids.”  Oh man, Hader is losing it again as he always does.  He never breaks character ever, but Stefon gets him every single time.  “Human suitcase?”  “It’s when a midget on roller skates wears all your clothes and you pull him through an airport.”  HAHAHA, holy shit, that’s great and offensive and amazing.  I understand they need to space out the appearances of Stefon, but I would love to see him every week.  He just slays me.  This saved the show from being the absolute worst of the year.  10/10

Livin’ Single – Vanessa Bayer plays a host on the Oxygen network.  Taran Killam – shit, where’s Paul Brittain tonight? – is playing her co-host, DJ Terry.  It’s a show about being single and all the girls on the show are talking about how they love it, but they really don’t.  Vanessa Bayer really reminds me a lot of Larraine Newman.  The DJ is in love with the host, but she’s not into him.  Russell Brand comes on as Damian, a suave British man and the host is instantly smitten with him.  I imagine the DJ is not going to like this.  Brand feeds her chocolate and she sucks on his finger.  Killam’s stone face is pretty funny.  “Is it sinful if I put your hand on my pectoral?”  “Give us a beat, Terry.”  “No, I don’t want to give him a beat.”  They proceed to start dry-humping.  This is a skit that really shouldn’t work, but Brand and Bayer and Killam are all pretty committed to their characters, which makes it easier to enjoy.  Brand gets the butter…I wonder if that’s in reference to Maria Schneider’s recent passing.  Either way, completely passable skit that I won’t remember tomorrow.  5.5/10

A Spot of Tea – Wow, a Samberg apperance.  Where has he been all night?  Samberg, Brand, and Hader are playing three old proper British women hosting a talk show.  It’s really hard to listen to them because their voices are all so shrill and high, but I suppose that’s the point.  An earthquake hits and their seismograph shows the results.  This is really bizarre and I don’t really think there are any jokes.  I’m hoping that something happens at the end to turn it on its head.  Every time they try to pour the tea, there’s  an earthquake…uh oh, please tell me this is going somewhere unexpected because otherwise this is a waste of everyone.  The show’s sponsor, a cabinet of glass, obviously gets ruined in yet another earthquake.  This is like a skit on a Nickelodeon show or something.  Wow, this was truly terrible.  Oh hey, Paul Brittain finally shows up with cheese fondue for half a second.  1.5/10

Chris Brown Again – This time he’s singing a ballad, which means no dancing, which means cringe-inducing lyrics about being horny and treacly music.  Ugh, this is really terrible.  It’s almost like a parody of the cheesy sex songs that R. Kelly sings.  He’s gonna do you all night, he’s gonna give it to you.  Jeez.  I don’t want to get too much into his personal life, but I wonder exactly what he’s gonna give to you all night.  1/10

Founding Fathers – A top-secret time machine that enables George Washington to appear.  Boehner and Pelosi both plead their cases to see what he would think.  Brand, as Washington, punches out Sudeikis.  Washington is freaking out, takes out his musket and boxes with Boehner, then karate chops Sudeikis.  Pelosi then stabs him in the back and kills him.  I’m surprised they didn’t have Boehner cry as he was getting punched.  Speaking of punches…there was no punchline in this skit.  3/10

Final Grades:

Russell Brand – Really disappointed by his showing tonight.  He was full of energy and all, but I can only fault the writing so much (and it was truly atrocious tonight, a common occurrence when there’s a two or three-week vacation coming) and he just seemed lost.  I just don’t think he was a good fit for this stage and this show.  I think he’s versatile and talented and charismatic, but he was not a strong SNL host.  Like I always say, you never really know who’s going to come through and who isn’t.  4/10

Chris Brown – Blah, blah, blah, boring.  2/10

The rest of the cast – The only thing that stood out to me was the use of Taran Killam and Bill Hader, both of whom were in practically every skit.  Meanwhile, Samberg, Abby Elliott, Fred Armisen and Paul Brittain were all seldom used – if at all.  Hader was probably the MVP tonight, saving some of the skits he was in and was the star of the two best parts of the show – Stefon and the British crime parody.  But Killam is a close second, proving that he’ll be a useful cast member.

The writing – This is really where most of the blame lies.  After working for three straight weeks, it makes sense that they’ve run out of some of their best material by week three, but this was really bottom of the barrel stuff.  They stepped it up for Stefon’s laundry list of oddities, but other than that, it was like they were on auto-pilot.  Either they had strong premises and couldn’t find the jokes or they had jokes that they couldn’t work into decent conceits.  Either way, this was a terrible night for the writers.  2.5/10

Okay, SNL will be on a break for a couple of weeks, so I’ll come up with some other junk to talk about for the next few Sundays.  But don’t forget to check back here on March 6th so we can discuss the Miley Cyrus episode that airs the night before with the sure-to-be-legendary STROKES performance.

Oh, and I give myself an 8/10 today.  I was on my game.

I’ve always been a big fan of Dana Carvey and I’m really excited to have him return to Saturday Night Live.  Because of his lackluster movie career, I think he’s often forgotten and overlooked in the pantheon of great SNL cast members.  Lorne Michaels was a huge fan from the beginning (Carvey famously got Michaels to laugh during his original audition, something that NEVER happens) and everybody thought Carvey was going to go on to be a huge movie star.  With middling (but, I think, enjoyable) films like Opportunity Knocks and Clean Slate, things got off to a rocky start and his film career stalled, unable to show his versatility in a vehicle that was designed around him playing one character.  That’s why he made a movie like Master of Disguise, which everyone kills him for.  It’s a kids’ movie that enable him to play multiple characters, a showcase for his talent.  But the movie was awful and that was it for Dana Carvey.  Let’s hope tonight gets him back on track.  I’m expecting a retrospective of all his best characters.  Hopefully we’ll get a Wayne’s World skit, a Church Lady skit, and maybe even a Hans and Franz skit.  I wonder how all of those sketches will play in this day and age.  My DVR didn’t record it, so I’m watching on Hulu, hopefully everything is in order and I don’t miss anything.

As for Linkin Park…um, not a fan.  Although this video of theirs, directed by the great Mark Romanek, is pretty amazing:

Okay, let’s get on with the recap:

Cold Open – WAYNE’S WORLD! You know, it’s funny, watching this skit reminds me that the Wayne’s World skits are really lame in comparison to the great Wayne’s World movies.  Still, it’s nice to see these characters again, even if all they’re doing is saying “Winter’s Bone” over and over again.  Strangely we didn’t get one “schwing” despite the fact that Carvey said it about eighty times during one of the promos.  Compared to some of the Wayne’s World skits in the past, this one is not up to snuff.  This is really all about the nostalgia factor, which I have to admit kicked in strongly for me.  And why is Mike Myers wearing a Blackhawks jersey instead of the standard black t-shirt that Wayne always wears?  Ultimately I can’t give it any more than a 6/10.

Monologue – Carvey makes a few salient points about the nature of SNL, about how everybody that watches it picks out one cast and then labels them the best.  Carvey, of course, labels his cast as the best.  Wiig, Samberg, and Hader all come out on stage to question this point until eventually the great Jon Lovitz comes out to agree with him.  They sing a song about being the best cast ever.  Truthfully, it’s a little bit like watching two dads come back to their old college and hang out at the frat house.  It’s not embarrassing exactly, but it’s a little upsetting to watch Carvey try so hard when he used to be the most effortlessly hilarious cast member.  He truly was one of the best, but he’s having too much of a good time with this monologue instead of just selling the jokes.  It’s great to see Lovitz, of course, but this entire monologue is just an excuse for the two of them to say old catchphrases; “Acting!” “Chopping broccoli,” etc.  I’m getting a bad feeling about this show…3/10

Church Lady – This one gets off to a good start, the writing seems stronger.  I love Nasim Pedrad, Abby Elliott and Vanessa Bayer as the Kardashian sisters, they really nail it.  (Side-note: I was really stoked when I saw Abby Elliott outside of a restaurant downtown on Wednesday night, but couldn’t work up the nerve to say anything.)  “I’m Khloe and I’m third.”  I understand that Carvey really wants to bask in the glory of his first “Isn’t that special?” in a decade, but the pause he takes feels a bit like grandstanding to me.  Bobby Moynihan comes out as Snooki, which the crowd always loves, but it’s probably my least favorite recurring “character.”  Moynihan is super talented, but his Snooki is lame, getting by on the “hilarity” of a fat guy in a dress.  “Oooh, a Guido!  You’re hot, make out with me!”  Carvey makes it work, though.  The Church Lady definitely ages better than Wayne’s World.   Really, Justin Bieber?  This dude is everywhere.  He’s at the Knicks games, on Jon Stewart, now SNL.  I have Bieber fever, I think, and it’s going to kill me.  Church Lady is getting turned on by Bieber, that’s an interesting twist.  Wow, this skit is nine minutes long, that’s ridiculous.  People complain about skits on SNL going on too long, but lately they’ve mostly been under five minutes.  Wayne’s World was six minutes, this one was nine, the monologue was six, that’s like a third of the show’s actual running time spent on three pieces.  Crazy.  But the Church Lady skit was the best so far, a welcome return.  7.5/10

The Roommate – Again with the Bieber!  This filmed short is brilliant.  It’s a minute long parody of the Minka Kelly/Leighton Meester movie, except with Samberg (as Sir Ben Kingsley, haha) as Bieber’s roommate.  I really enjoyed this one quite a bit.  Samberg often does this nerdy, nasally weirdo, but he does it so well.  9/10

Linkin Park – This is so awful.  I know there are people that really enjoy this kind of music, but I can’t make it past a minute of this rap/rock/emo/whiny boringness.  Ugh.  1/10

Teen Crisis Hotline – Celebrities helping teens.  I love Hader’s Alan Alda, it’s one of the most pitch-perfect impression I have ever heard.  You can see how good it is when you compare it to Dana Carvey’s Mickey Rooney, which is not really an impression so much as a caricature.  But that’s what Carvey always did well.  People think he was a great impressionist, but his real talent was in picking out one aspect of a person and then building a “character” out of this real-life person (i.e. George Bush, Ross Perot, etc.).  Armisen does Ice-T, which is okay, but more dependent on the make-up and clothing than the voice.  Abby Elliott’s Anna Faris is pretty great, though, spot-on.  “Drunk dad, ooooh, bummer!”  Jay Pharoah, the modern day Eddie Murphy, doing Eddie Murphy!  Brilliant, just brilliant.  Guess this will give Eddie Murphy another excuse to disown his SNL years and never return.

Weekend Update – This is all out of order because of Hulu, which is annoying.  I wish they’d let me just watch Weekend Update straight through instead of breaking it up into clips and ruining the flow.  Oh well.  Paul Brittain as James Franco, hopefully this will be good.  I think Brittain has secretly been one of the strongest newcomers I’ve seen since Andy Samberg and I’m glad he’s getting more airtime.  “I like having jobs!”  Brittain’s got the smiling down pretty well, but it’s not a particularly distinctive impression, and this segment seems designed just to make the joke that James Franco does a lot of things and it gets old quickly.  Thankfully it’s only two minutes.  Kristin Wiig as Angela Dixon, former disco queen turned weather expert.  I’m guessing she’ll break out into song during a forecast…yep, there it is.  Against all odds, I’m really enjoying this character and these songs.  I think Wiig is at her strongest when she does larger than life personalities, but that are grounded in something like a song, which gives the character a focus.  Sometimes she can fall into the trap of just being over the top, but here it makes sense and it works.  And Meyer always make all these characters work with his exasperation, he’s a great straight man.  Winners/Losers: Egypt was a strong segment.  “You cannot punch the handsome off Anderson Cooper.”  Tunisia is the Soundgarden to Egypt’s Nirvana, love the early 90s grunge references.  “Egyptians are great at preserving things.”  The Empire State Building run-up is “great if you love running marathons but always wished someone’s ass was in your face.”  Overall, a pretty good update, no complaints.  Still no Stefon sightings…sigh.  8/10

Linkin Park Again – I’m not even going to pretend that I watched this.  I saw it was in black and white, though, for no discernible reason.  Skip.  N/A

Deidra Wurtz – Abby Elliott finally gets her own skit and it’s a pretty funny premise.  She gives bad news to people even though she’s something akin to a Midwestern valley girl.  She really fully embodies every character she plays and she’s very versatile.  How long until she’s the star of a romantic comedy?  This isn’t the funniest thing I’ve ever seen, but it’s got a strong conceit and it’s executed as well as it could be and it doesn’t overstay its welcome.  I won’t be re-watching it anytime soon, but I wouldn’t mind if I saw this character again in the future.  Where’s Dana Carvey?  And, less importantly, where’s Kenan Thompson?  6.5/10

Sports Bar – Hey, it’s Taran Killam, haven’t seen him in a few weeks.  Armisen and Carvey are the leads of a British New Wave band playing at a small sports bar during the Super Bowl, annoying all of the customers who just want to watch the game.  I love Hader and Brittain in the background and Carvey and Armisen are totally committed to this.  Finally, they’re letting Carvey create something new instead of just doing retreads.  This is a really funny premise and I think Carvey and Armisen are just absolutely killing it.  I really like the ending, with Killam admitting that he liked the song.  And I have to admit, I liked the song too.  I wish the skit went somewhere a bit more interesting, but it was still pretty good.  8/10

Pageant Preview – Starts with a very unfunny minute of Kenan and Dana Carvey doing southern accents.  And it doesn’t get that much better from there.  They’re hosts of a kids’ beauty pageant and they describe the contestants as they come out and it’s just awful.  Samberg comes out as a kid dressed as a cowboy, which is mildly funny and helps save the skit somewhat.  But really, there’s no joke here and it’s just uncomfortable to watch.  How did this make it out of dress?  2/10

Final Grades:

Dana Carvey – Really hit and miss and I’m not sure how much of the misses are his fault and how much was the writing’s fault.  And I don’t know how much he contributed to the writing of his own skits.  Church Lady worked, Wayne’s World didn’t, but the best parts of the evening – The Roommate and Weekend Update – were without him.  He had a bit too much enthusiasm in the beginning, but seemed to settle down as the night went on.  Overall, not the dynamic return we were all hoping for, but decent enough.  6.5/10

Linkin Park – Made it through one minute of their ten minutes of stage time.  I don’t really think it’s appropriate to grade them since I find their music abhorrent (although, seriously, check out that Romanek video above, it’s awesome).  So, I’ll go with N/A

The rest of the cast – I think the MVP award goes to Abby Elliott this week.  Her Khloe Kardashian was stellar, her Anna Faris was unbelievably good, and her new character Deidra Wurtz really worked.  It was good to see Paul Brittain, but I thought his James Franco was kinda weak.  Wiig had a good week, her disco weatherwoman was a nice addition to Update.  It was good to see old castmembers like Lovitz and Mike Myers, but wish they would have stuck around and done a few more skits.  Bieber was in more skits than the two of them.  Samberg was excellent as he always is, same with Nasim Pedrad and I wish Jay Pharoah was given more to do than just his amazing impressions.  I was happy that Kenan was absent from most of the skits, though.  7.5/10

The writing – Not the best night for the writers tonight.  I think The Roommate, Update and the Sports Bar skits all had strong premises but a lot of the others ones didn’t go far enough.  The Pageant was awful and the Monologue should have been stronger and I really wish they did something better with Wayne and Garth.  5/10

I’ll give myself a 5/10 for watching on Hulu, which is not my favorite method of watching SNL.  Plus, I’m fairly hungover, so I’m not sure I was on top of my game.  Next week, we’ve got the hilarious Russell Brand and Chris Brown, so I’ll see you all then!