Bobby Burack
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Finally, some positive ratings news.
This weekend’s Saturday Night Live season premiere drew 7.8 million viewers. Saturday’s episode, hosted by Chris Rock, is the highest-rated premiere in four years.
It cold-opened with a newsworthy presidential debate skit. Alec Baldwin returned as President Donald Trump. Jim Carrey debuted as Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden.
SNL was much-needed after another wild 2020 week that elevated the country to yet another level of chaos.
Baldwin’s Trump interruptions and expressions were on point.
Carrey likewise nailed his Biden impression. He consistently started and ended his answers merely with a Biden-like “here’s the deal” and nothing more.
Maya Rudolph returned as Sen. Kamala Harris but didn’t help. SNL played Harris off as a babysitter for the two men. For Biden it worked, but it made no sense with Trump.
The NBC show, of course, couldn’t help itself. Clearly, the segment was designed to push Biden as the sane candidate. In the end, Biden “muted” Trump and then went on a lengthy monologue about karma and science teaming up against the president, who tested positive for COVID-19.
SNL had a golden opportunity to poke fun at Biden’s past uses of the teleprompter, referring to an Iowa voter as “fat,” and numerous other gaffes.
I would’ve preferred SNL to mock all parties equally, including Chris Wallace. Despite having many ways to parody his behavior, SNL let the moderator, who was panned by Trump and Biden supporters alike, off too easy.
I give it a 6. You?
This is the problem most people get fed their politics from SNL and nightly comedy shows. I wasn’t one of the 7.8 million that watched this though.
Haven’t watched SNL in 5 years, and haven’t watched it consistently for over 20. In Living Color is my favorite all time Live sketch show, and Chappelle’s Show was #1 overall as far as I’m concerned. They made fun of EVERYONE.
SNL went woke a long time ago, and the comedy went with it.
Agreed, Sam. I haven’t paid attention to SNL since the Chris Farley/David Spade era.
I haven’t watched SNL in so many years, I can’t remember the last time I tuned in. Don’t miss it either.
Didn’t watch don’t plan on watching just a couple old has beens trashing our great President no thanks
I thought it was pretty good, except the end as well. They made Joe look as incoherent as he is. At one point, Jim Carey was like, “All I need to do is stand here and look lucid…” and then stood there looking the opposite. Pretty good skit. The end, not so much, but to be honest a mute on Trump would’ve probably helped him at some points in the debate.
Baldwin doesn’t actually really do a good Trump impression. But this was still good regardless.
They used to do an amazing job mocking both sides of the aisle, in a “self-deprecating” way, not mean spirited. It’s ugly now.