SNL: Kendrick Lamar, Woody Harrelson, Kate McKinnon (CREDIT: YouTube Screenshot)
This review was originally posted on Starpulse in November 2014.
Season 40 of “Saturday Night Live” has been notably light on recurring material; this episode, with the exception of one sketch and one Weekend Update segment, was completely devoid of anything recurring. While it is nice to have a tendency towards original material, the best “SNL” seasons have always had a decent mix of new and repeating characters. It is time for the cast and writers to really figure out what they do best and focus on that. If the show was relying on the host to kick itself into gear in this way, then Woody Harrelson was never going to be the man for that job. Instead, he was happy to ride along with whatever he was asked to do, a style that worked just fine but would have worked better if this season had a better sense of its identity. Kendrick Lamar definitely brought it, though.
Barack Obama and Mitch McConnell – It can work comedically to have politicians appear laid-back in an atypical setting, but it requires playing off or playing against their known personas. This sketch did play off Obama’s enmity with the GOP Congress, but it was not specific enough to have anything to do with Mitch McConnell. Overall, this felt like an impression of the format of this type of gradual time-lapse sketch, but there was hardly any rhyme or reason to its pacing (the subtitles of what number drink the guys were on were meaningless). C
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