TV PREMIERE REVIEW: "Saturday Night Live"

I would like to offer my sincerest apologies to anyone that stayed up to watch the season premiere of "Saturday Night Live" based on my recommendation last week.

It was awful.

It transcended awful.

It was what you would find on the bottom of awful's shoes.

Fortunately for me, I was out with some friends watching USC blow the doors off Ohio State so I had it recorded (my DVR is SOOOO not talking to me right now) and watched it late Sunday night when all of the glorious football was over for the day.

Quick side note - How great was that Denver-San Diego game?! Just another reason why I love having the DirecTV football package: I knew that game was going to be an old school AFL shootout and I got to watch it from start to finish while the rest of my region was stuck watching the Pats and Jets in a field goal kicking contest. Greatest.

But I digress...

There was a lot of hype about this particular premiere of "SNL" because U.S. Aquaman Michael Phelps was hosting, Lil Wayne was the "musical" guest, Tina Fey was returning to the show as V.P. hopeful Sarah Palin, and there was supposed to be a guest appearance by Presidential candidate Barack Obama (he decided not to show because of everything going on with Hurricane Ike in the Gulf Coast region - definitely understandable).

And I wanted it to be good.

I've stayed with the show over the years (I didn't bail when Ferrel left) and last season, it was actually really kind of good most of the time (how's that for an endorsement?).

But I was nervous about this one for a couple of reasons:

1. Did you happen to see any one of the 3,894 interviews with Michael Phelps over the summer? He always seems kinda stiff and uncomfortable and that's in INTERVIEWS TALKING ABOUT SWIMMING. This is live TV, with lines that are supposed to be funny, and other actors moving around you trying to be funny.

2. I know this is probably terrible for a pop culture writer to admit but I have no idea who Lil Wayne is and/or what he "sings".

I was excited to see Fey as Palin (in the history of casting, has there ever been an easier choice?) but I went into the episode cautiously at best.

The opening skit was definitely the high point of the night (click here to watch). I always enjoy Fey and Amy Poehler together (pictured above) and it was great to see Poehler trot out her Hillary impersonation again (seriously, if Amy Poehler's Hillary Clinton was the real Hillary Clinton, I would probably be more into her).

And of course they took shots at Palin (it was never a question of "if" they were going to do it, but "how") because that's how "SNL" rolls.

Oh, and I'm never going to get excited or offended about how political figures are portrayed on late night comedy shows because after all, it's just a late night comedy show - just make it smart and funny and I'm good. The two types of humans that scare me the most are the ones that (A) get offended by content from comedy shows and (B) use comedy shows like this one or "The Daily Show" or "The Colbert Report" to gather their news information and make important political decisions (and you're kidding yourself if you think these shows aren't trying to influence individuals that can't think for themselves. "SNL" has even lauched it's own "election" site here).

But that's another post for another time.

After the opening skit, it was ALLLL downhill from there.

You can always tell when the "SNL" writers know that they have a bad host on their hands because they give them as little to do in the opening monologue as possible. We had Amy Poehler as Phelp's over-exuberant mom, cast member Will Forte was trying to get Phelps to endorse a do-it-yourself crystal meth lab for teenagers (yes, you read that correctly), and they went for the big guns and brought out William Shatner to give Phelps some tips on doing priceline... er, I mean, celebrity endorsements. It was fascinating to watch them do ANYTHING possible to keep Phelps from having to talk.

And I don't want to sound un-American, but Phelps was brutal. As amazing as he was to watch in the Olympics, he was at the polar opposite here. Michael Jordan, Peyton Manning, and Lebron James (to name a few) were really good when they hosted, but athletes can be hit or miss on "SNL" and this was tough to get through.

The rest of the cast came out flat too - even my girl Kristen Wiig (can't wait to see her in the new Ricky Gervais film "Ghost Town", which comes out on Friday). Despite not having a breakout star (in the Will Ferrell-Eddie Murphy-Mike Myers vein) right now, I defended the current "SNL" cast the other day because they've been really solid the past few seasons... so I don't know WHAT happened.

Keenan Thompson had a few humorous moments as Charles Barkley, the T-Mobile spoof with Jason Sudeikis and Wiig at least made me chuckle out loud a few times; but other than that, it was pretty bad.

Rock bottom had to be the Andy Samberg "Space Olympics" digital short (I won't even insult this site by posting it on this page so click here if you dare).

Through the miracle of DVR, I was able to fast forward through most of the sketches after a minute or two and I also skipped through Lil Wayne's gyrations.

But the moral of the story is that regardless of what I or anyone else thinks, the NBC suits are happy this morning because the show debuted to its best premiere ratings in seven years (go figure) so you can't tell them that it was a bad show. Even though the "art" had to suffer for a week, you can't ever blame the Peacock for capitalizing on the combination of a huge Olympic athlete + huge recording artist + return of popular TV star.

James Franco hosts next week (he's sneaky funny - have you seen him on the deleted scenes of "Knocked Up"?) so it will be interesting to see if they can get the comedy back on track.

If not, I might be getting plenty of rest on Saturday nights this fall.

- Josh Mahler

PS. Thankfully I blew out my opponent in one of my fantasy football leagues and am getting blown out in the other one, so there won't be any extra stress tonight as my Eagles go into Dallas tonight (as if it were actually possible to feel more stress during an Eagles-Cowboys game).

Unfortunately for me, I actually feel confident about our chances and that's never a good thing...

Can't wait for kickoff!