SNL Review 12-9-06: Annette Bening / Gwen Stefani

Cold Open: Bush is an idiot, Iraq is a mess.  Really?  Except for Sudeikis doing camera takes when he would start reading his letters, this was a total bore and way too long. 

Opening Credits: Don Pardo has some sort of fit trying to say the name Gwen Stefani.

Monologue: I guess this monologue was left over from 1999, because it's all American Beauty jokes.  Alec Baldwin shows up because he lives in the building now.  He saves the bit. 

SNL Re-Cut Apocalypto Trailer: Wow.  The once pioneering sketch comedy series has decided to copycat something that movie nerds have been doing in their basements for years now.  Surprisingly, even with outthe power of a major network behind them, the nerds make better re-cut trailers.  This was fine, but it really was just adding subtitles to an existing trailer.  Not that hard. 

Good Morning I Hate This Town: Seems to be an excuse to say "dumbass" as many times as possible.  A waste of a good idea, but Kenan was good though.  And it was short. 

Saturday TV Funhouse - Diddy Kiddies: What does Diddy do?  Good stuff. 

Teacher / Student Sex: A teacher is in love with her idiot student.  Bening stares at the cue cards the entire time and still manages to stumble through her lines.  Wow, that was pointless. 

Next Week: Justin Timberlake

Two A-Holes in a Live Nativity Scene: This bit may have run its course. 

SNL Digital Short: Weird.  Matthew Fox is in this, so it was most likely cut from last week's show.  And although it has nothing to do with Lost, it ends with a Lost-style graphic saying Happy Holidays. 

Buyer Beware: Low budget public access-ish show (that looks too good, especially in HD, to be a low budget public access show).  Kinda pointless, but Kenan is always good for at least a chuckle. 

Gwen Stefani "sings": I'm not so sure she's even singing whatever the hell this is.

Weekend Update: Most of the jokes were pretty good.  Hammond shows up as Al Gore in a bit that goes nowhere.  Kristen Wiig's segment was equally pointless.  Will Forte and Fred Armisen sing a protest song about gay marriage.  Forte sounds like Steve Martin here for some reason. 

Monster: There's a monster in Amy Poehler's bedroom and her parents freak out.  Bening stares at the cue cards again.  I'm not really sure what her presence is even contributing to the show at this point.  I'll give this a touch of credit for Will Forte's dedication to staying in character. 

Valtrex Commercial: From the Alec Baldwin episode. 

Three Sheltered People Go To Some Restaurant: Bening stares at the cue cards, which gets in the way of an otherwise oddly interesting sketch. 

Akon: Akon raps in a purple sweater and the dude from Fishbone is playing keyboards and saying "Yep, yep, okay" into the mic during the song.

Law Firm for Cats: A commercial (done live) for cats who have inherited money.  And then in the middle of the sketch it gets cut off (for time, I'm guessing).  Ricky and Ron must have formatted the script in two hour pages this week. 

Well, that was... something.  I see no reason why Annette Bening was the host, as she contributed nothing memorable.  Sloppy in places, painful in others.

Comments

[Andy]

Pretty much right on all accounts with this review. Bening was downright horrible, stared at the cue cards all night. Did not add anything as a host that couldn't have been done by someone else (on the other hand, compare to Matthew Fox in the elevator sketch with everyone shooting off Lost theories). I did disagree with you on the A-holes sketch, especially the use of the donkey. Overall show, though, was probably a D-, only saved by Keenan in a few spots and Forte in the monster and restaurant sketches.

[Brian]

Is it safe to say that Annette Bening is the worst host ever? I can't ever remember seeing a host detract from every sketch they were in, but she pulled it off. Can Alec Baldwin host every week?