Critics are marveling at ‘Saturday Night Live’ for what they described as the ‘remarkably weak’ return to the waves after a six-week hiatus that included a chaotic news cycle.
Viewers who tuned in to the long-running NBC sketch comedy program noted that Saturday’s episode largely avoided mocking President Biden after mocking former President Donald Trump, played by Alec Baldwin, for the past four years.
Los Angeles Times TV critic Lorraine Ali went head-to-head with a headline: “Maybe Trump did kill satire: ‘SNL’ kicks off the Biden era in remarkably weak form.”
Ali opened her review with the question, “What would late-night comedy do without Trump?” Judging by the first episode of the late-night mainstay since the 45th president left office, Ali replied: “the future looks … uninspired.”
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“After a month-long hiatus, the show has struggled to find its footing and has sadly surpassed it by a world that has changed drastically since the venerable sketch comedy, now in its 46th season, was last aired in December,” Ali said. writing. ‘Despite all the problems – an astonishing uprising in the US Capitol, the tearing of Kim and Kanye, Bernie Sanders’ inaugural shoes, QAnon idiots in fur, vaccination rolls, GameStop goofballs games in Wall Street – the host John Krasinski and the cast got little to nothing to work with by writers of ‘SNL’. “
She added: “If Trump has won one victory in the past month, it could be that ‘SNL’ suddenly looks lost without him. The big orange beacon of ridicule has left the building, and where’s the joy of pleasing Biden? or Vice President Kamala Harris … if so far there has been only an aggressive normal inauguration and civil daily newsletters … ‘SNL’ will have to increase its scope again, because humor is being forced out of the White House. be as easy as the last four years. ‘
Atlantic staff writer David Sims was just as critical, calling the return of ‘SNL’ after a busy six weeks ‘the equivalent of a giant shrug’ and claiming that the show ‘does not have the energy’ to cover current events do not pack. on and beat the “slack political humor.”
“The show is clearly entering a period of transition to a foolish, less open political approach, with this strange season as an awkward bridge,” Sims wrote.
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Vanity Fair contributor Karen Valby led her review by writing: “I can not remember Donald Trump’s name being said once on last night’s SNL. It’s great – except that so many are still struggling
Valby went on to suggest that part of the problem was host John Krasinski, and he writes that the show apparently ‘did not know what to do with an apple pie from a man built like a steak. ‘