Saturday Night Live is back for its 45th season, and the season premiere kicked off in the aftermath of one of the biggest week’s in political news this year (and that’s saying something). Though SNL had pulled back from doing too much political satire last season, mostly because the presidential administration is too funny of a joke itself to effectively parody, they came back with a vengeance by not only bringing Alec Baldwin back as Donald Trump, but several guest stars, as well as host Woody Harrelson, as key Democratic presidential candidates. One of those wasn’t too bad, but the best parts of the show came outside the political arena. So let’s get into it.
Check out our rundown of the best and worst sketches from the Woody Harrelson hosted Saturday Night Live below.
The Best
Dad – It’s been awhile since we’ve had an oddball sketch from Kyle Mooney that’s this good. It’s an after-school special version of the opening credits of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air done by the whitest kid ever. This has early 1990s style on lock, which is a big part of what makes it so funny. But Mooney’s perfectly awkward performance is what makes it land so firmly.
DNC Town Hall – Throughout this entire sketch, I was asking myself why this wasn’t the cold open. It’s infinitely better political satire than the cold open in every way. But then I realized, this sketch is 10 minutes long, largely thanks to the huge roster of Democratic presidential candidates that needed to be introduced. This “Impeachment Town Hall” was clearly just an excuse to do a debate sketch that the SNL missed out on over the summer, but since it was hilarious, we’ll let it slide. And as has become the case with most of SNL‘s political material lately, it’s great thanks to guest stars like Larry David as Joe Biden (which explains why Pete Davidson was MIA this entire episode) and Maya Rudolph, doing an outstanding job as Kamala Harris.
Apple Picking Ad – Aidy Bryant was particularly giggly this evening thanks to a huge flub from the wardrobe department earlier in the show (we’ll get to that later), and that carried over into this sketch with Kate McKinnon. But thankfully, the giggling wasn’t the only reason this sketch was hilarious, as they nailed the completely inane activity of apple picking during the fall.
Continue Reading Paul Rudd SNL Review >>
The post ‘Saturday Night Live’ Has a Cavalcade of Guest Stars Join Woody Harrelson for a Solid Season Premiere appeared first on /Film.