SNL takes sharp aim at Sarah Palin, but doesn't change the game

I guess the zeitgeist doesn't change on a calendar schedule.

That's my elite media way of saying that Saturday Night Live's opening spoof of GOP vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin last night was amazingly accurate -- forget how much guest star Tina Fey looks like Palin; how did she cop that Wisconsin-meets-the-high-tundra accent? -- but didn't draw much blood.

Instead Fey and longtime pal Amy Poehler as Hillary Clinton made fun of stuff we already knew -- that the inexperienced Palin and her come-from-nowhere success is just another shot in the side to a woman who seemed uniquely qualified for the presidency, but doomed to be on he wrong side of history.

"Ask this one about dinosaurs," Poehler as Clinton quipped, amazed that somebody who might not believe in them could be a serious candidate for the presidency. Maybe the deeper joke is that we're not as astonished as her character.

Unfortunately, it's still the Daily Show which excels at telling tough truths about American political and media culture through satire -- though I loved Poehler's Weekend Update joke about how McCain was just trailing six points behind his running mate (I bet a real-life poll would have an even bigger gap).

The rest of SNL's fall debut was what we'd come to expect. Host Michael Phelps couldn't possibly live up to a double-barrelled opening salvo of Fey and Poehler, especially since the show worked hard to limit his role as much as possible. I told a friend that expecting an Olympic swimming champion to be a good SNL host is like expecting a farmer to be a good airline pilot -- the two jobs don't seem remotely related.

Watching Phelps struggle to play himself in a sketch where Keenan Thompson was struggling to play Charles Barkley and Darrell Hammond seemed annoyed to be stuck in the butt end of the show as Bela Karolyi, the wisdom of producers' decision regarding their host was clear. (Thompson's de-evolution into a new-school Garrett Morris -- the black guy who plays famous black people mostly by putting on bad hairpieces and shouting a lot, is a sad, separate story).

If anything, Saturday's show left you wondering what this franchise was going to do without Poehler, who was in the lion's share of the show's sketches despite her quite-obvious pregnancy. Hiding her behind podiums and pillows looked like a page from an old sitcom -- though showing off her belly in a sketch about the Michael Phelps 12,000 calorie per day diet was priceless.

Instead of telling me something new and funny about where we are politically, Saturday's SNL left me wistful for the days when talented women like Fey, Poehler and Maya Rudolph ran the joint (and sad about reports that Hurricane Ike prompted Barack Obama to cancel, scotching a possible appearance by Rudolph as Michelle Obama).

Fey and Poehler are about to have their own shows to worry about. SNL better find a way to get its mojo back before these talented ladies have left the building for good.

Here's the Fey/Poehler and Barkley sketches:

 

Comments

[John]

We get it, Tina Fey, you love Clinton and hate Palin. Why people love Fey so much I don't get... but oh well. By the way even though its not as good as it was in the 90's (which in my opinion was better than the original cast) it still gets some laughs so why not keep it?

[Mark]

To the person who said "Who cares about the biased liberal media & Hollywood elitists attacking Sarah?"

I'm thinking you must care if you're replying to a blog posting from a week ago...

Who cares about the biased liberal media & Hollywood elitists attacking Sarah?

[Stephen]

I hate hearing people saying
"SNL is garbage let it die." BLAHHH BLAHHH.
As i stand to remember the days of farley and spade and that cast at that time we reguarded as.
"SNL is Garbage let it die."

Am I wrong?
SNL has always had the audience wanting the orignal or last cast on the show till they realize what they dont have anymore.
Kristen Wigg is a great talent.
Same the new guy in the Pepper sketch.
Watch it to enjoy and not to pick it apart.
It feels like you are watching SNL and treating it like a presidential debate.

[missy]

I agree that Phelps did a horrible job but to assume he would because he is an athlete is not fair. Manning did an awesome job as host and a lot of people whom are not comedians by trade have come off as good hosts with memorable skits. Justin Timberlake for example, an an athlete but a musician and still not into comedy by trade, is one of the best hosts on SNL. i cannot wait until he does it again.

[Thomas]

As much as I love Tina Fey (I luuurrve her) SNL is rubbish and has been pretty much forever. At best you get 1 really good segment a week, and if you're lucky 1 or 2 others that raise a titter, but the rest are trash. As a half hour sketch should it would be week, as it is it's painful. The only way to watch SNL is to let others suffer then watch the good bits on the net the next day.

[Matt]

As said above, not enough blood was drawn. I wanted the Sarah Palin emerging from the media's digging; the back-stabbing, provincial, mean-spirited hustler for whom Getting Somewhere is more important than doing something once you get there. Whoever plays Palin in subsequent sketches, I want the writers to get their knives out--few people deserve it so richly . . .

[Tom]

Hey, Eric ... great job on CNN yesterday morning!

[Tom]

We all saw the Tina Fey sketch coming and it was okay, only because she did a dead-on Palin (which we knew she'd do). Other than that, the show was really bad. Michael Phelps is simply difficult to look at-- forget that we had to watch him poorly read cue cards.

[Eric Deggans]

I hear you regarding the musical guests, John. I couldn't believe Lil Wayne wore a guitar through his entire second sond, only to pull it up to play a simplistic and out of tune solo for the last, like, 16 bars of the song....arg...

[Mary]

Oh, for the days of Belushi, Chevy Chase, Steve Martin, Bill Murray, Jane Curtain, etc. SNL's glory days have been gone for many years. Pull the plug and let them put us out of our misery. I'd be more than glad to watch reruns of those days than watch the insipid drivel they keep trying to push as comedy.

[John]

How about the "musical guests" as of recent? Lil Wayne was the biggest steaming pile of ...forget it...i don't even have the energy to rant about how bad it was/is.

[john]

Let SNL die already
has'nt been good in years
Stunk with Fey too
Let it go

[Ken]

SNL is under utilizing the talents of Bill Hader. Who can forget the two hilarious sketches he did has a flustered Vincent Price in a parody of old TV variety shows? The work of Kirstin Wiig in those sketches was also priceless. SNL needs more of those and less of the Charles Barkley Show type.