Front Row Geek: If You Haven't Been Watching Saturday Night Live...

By W.B. Preston @prestonwb
Congratulations! You have a life. The show is unfunny, uninspired, and mostly terrible. Which is odd considering the wealth of talent the cast has to offer.(Fred Armisen, Bill Hader, Kristen Wiig, Jason Sudeikis, Taran Killam, Andy Samberg, Bobby Moyniham, and Keenan Thompson). This is a veteran cast with years of experience and comedic chops, yet some how most of the skits miss more often than they hit. This failure I must lay at the feet of the writers. But more accurately perhaps the blame lay at the feet of the institution. Perhaps this just is what SNL is. A mostly unfunny vehicle for a few comedians to showcase their work. Sure there are a few bright spots here and there, but the show is largely about promoting the host and the performer. The rest is just filler. Going back into the 70's and 80's most of the skits are corny and safe. Obviously there are exceptions to every rule, just this Saturday the intro poked fun at race relations in sports concerning Jeremy Lin and his new-found fame. It was shocking at how risky some of the jokes were, but considering the target, not surprising. Not much risk involved, but well more than anything the show has put on in the last few years.
Another problem the show has is a suspicious lack of diversity. I know, Jewish comedians in New York is a staple, but to have a show, in 2012, without a single Asian, Hispanic, Indian or Arabic person, or a Black woman, speaks to some of the issues the show is having in being fresh and boundary pushing. I think most people agree the early 90's is the golden age of Saturday Night Live, but this cast has such potential, it's sad to see it wasted like this. Obviously I can't speak to whether or not there are egos among the cast or if there are jokes that are not making it into the skits, but the product we get on a weekly basis is not up to snuff. In the past it was the hosts job to match the witty and outrageous cast, now when the show is good, it is the cast trying to match wits with Galafanakis or Deshanel or Emma Stone. And they called in Maya Rudolph, Amy Phoeler and Justin Timberlake this past week to add some energy to the lackluster bunch. So in summation, if you haven't been watching SNL, you aint missin much.