Season Finale Season: SNL; How I Met Your Mother
Remember Kevin Spacey? Remember how awesome he was? Usual Suspects, L.A. Confidential, Midnight and the Garden of Good and Evil were all good if not great movies. In the mid-90s people LOVED Kevin Spacey, but as soon as the American Beauty thing died down something happened. I’m not going to say it was Pay It Forward, but it was. I saw that movie in the theater on a double-bill with Space Cowboys, which is completely irrelevant to my point about Kevin Spacey, but is quite funny nonetheless.
In short, Kevin Spacey has become a bit of a punchline. All that being said, I think he will make an AMAZING Lex Luthor. But that’s not all, click below for more…
Back to SNL. I was really looking forward to this week’s show as Spacey, though he may have questionable tastes in scripts, he has undeniable comic timing. Plus, he did the Christopher Walken Star Wars screen test which is positively hilarious. So with those high hopes I report that SNL #3120 was a bonefide non-success. That is, it was a completely forgetable episode with a single notable highlight (or two, but who’s counting). That moment, in a strange turn for the show, was the monologue– almost exclusivley Spacey being Spacey. It worked because he’s a natural showman. I would much rather watch Kevin Spacey on a talk-show than act in a movie, and that’s why the monologue was so fun. It didn’t seem written. The premise was Spacey showing us what he’d do if he were on American Idol. It’s a simple idea that was executed remarkably, and yet had little to do with the creative team at SNL, but entirely on his performance. At least it wasn’t audience Q&A, which seemed to have been the go-to for most of this season.
The only other notable moment was a sketch about the new Niel Young record that featured Andy Samberg playing Conor Oberst. Of course, the sketch played at about 12:55 so no one probably saw it.
Also interesting is the fate of Tina Fey and, I guess also, Rachael Dratch. While they never said, “This is our last show” they did say, “Tina, this is you 180th show!” which doesn’t really make any sense unless you consider that she might be leaving. Also, during the goodbye she was wearing a t-shirt that said, “Thank You.” I suspect it’s all quite tentative. The success of 30 Rock is probably key. I can’t imagine her staying on if the show is a hit, though if it fails after its first week there’s no doubt that she’d probably like to go back to SNL. Time will tell.
How I Met Your Mother (finale)
First of all, sorry for the delay, I had to catch up on the last three episodes of the season this afternoon. I like this show, but I don’t love this show. It’s biggest problem will always be the three-camera setup. It isn’t funny enough to make the live-audience aspect (which likely isn’t live at all) necessary, and the dramatic aspects seem to always be undercut by the chance that the “audience” could start laughing. So if you get past all of that nonsense, you’re left with a good show.
The finale was just about what I was expecting. People hooked up, others broke up, the music swelled and we all walked away feeling like better people. But am I the only one who’s totally bored with the will-they or won’t-they romantic plotlines? I was willing to give it a pass on The Office because it isn’t what the show is actually about. But with How I Met Your Mother the will-they/won’t-they IS what the show is about, and dammit, I’ve seen that before (most noteably with Ed).
This really just speaks to how dire the comedy-horizons are on television. You look at the sitcoms proposed during the upfronts last week and just about every series involved someone looking for love. C’mon people, there has to be another storyline?
Until then, there’s It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia. (YES!)
Tags: CBS, How I Met Your Mother, NBC, Season Finale, SNL
May 21st, 2006 at 7:12 pm
I thought the Usual Suspects send-up was well done.
Even though it was a q&a, I think Tom Hanks’ monologue — perhaps the best sketch in that episode — was the best recent one. (And remember when songs were the go-to? What happened?)
May 22nd, 2006 at 3:49 pm
Above all, I just really feel like this SNL season was weird. Most shows were completely forgettable, and yet I thought there was an occasional sign of life that made me feel hopeful for next year. However, there’s a very good chance that I’ve been tricked there, because although I felt it was good to see some of the newer cast members seem to find voices, I’m can’t prove that I actually like almost any of those voices. Bill Hader might threaten Daryl Hammond’s 73 year run with his ability to mimic, and Andy Samberg seems to be the hot thing with the kids, but I just don’t see any stars.
I did like the original A-holes sketch, and I didn’t mind them coming back. I don’t love Tina and Amy on update, and it makes me just straight up suspicious when one episode (Alec Baldwin) was good beginning to end, and I don’t think you could piece together a better episode if you took apart all the other episodes in the season. And for second place? I might have to go with Matt Dillon’s episode. Weird.
Here’s hoping that the SNL 2 shows followed by 2 or 3 reruns schedule can come up with some better stuff next year.