‘Saturday Night Live’ review: Dragon Babies, Drunk Uncle, Barbara Walters, and Charlize Theron

This week, “Saturday Night Live” tried … to do something. They can at least celebrate putting on a show. We were here and ready to laugh, but instead we got a show that was at times so boring and unfunny, we would have turned it off were it not our job to cover it before we even gave the stuff after “Weekend Update” a chance.

Expect some general disdain and disappointment ahead as we go through some of the sketches. Be warned that the list of “the good” this week is not nearly as long.

The Good

Dragon Babies – Probably one of the few gems in a night full of duds, mostly because we had a chance here to see something very different for the show. Fun animation, and the idea of a wheezy cop turned voice actor was funny.

Whiskers R We – This got better as it went along, mostly because of Kate McKinnon’s lines about some of the problems with the various cats. Also, bold move on the part of the show to actually involve real cats in the sketch.

Tourists – Seriously, we would have rather watched this series of gags than most of the rest of the show. There were at least some good characters in here.

The Bad

Michelle Obama / Hillary Clinton opening – This was the sort of sketch that felt okay in theory, but didn’t really work out as well as they may have hoped. Mostly, this was just the same old political opening, but with First Ladies rather than Presidents.

Charlize Theron opening – The best way that we can put this monologue is that there are few things that we have seen as of late that are less funny than this. It’s “SNL” busting out the old “singing” bit for the billionth time, and as if that was not bad enough on its own, it was very self-indulgent to remind you of everything that Charlize can do. If you’re having to remind us of your achievements in the opening, that is not a good sign.

Mother’s game show – This was actually a very good idea, but something was off when it comes to the energy of almost everyone except for maybe Aidy Bryant. Also, who thought that we would see Brooks Whelan in a sketch so early in the show?

Girlfriends Talk Show – We despite this bit with every fabric of our being. There’s nothing funny in it, and there never has been more than just a line or two.

Heshi – Did anyone need to see this Nasim Pedrad character return to the show? We would have been more than okay with never seeing this weird, wacky character on a part of the show again. Theron’s duplicate just felt desperate.

“Weekend Update” – This was why Barbara Walters should not be doing “Saturday Night Live.” Her bit was unfunny, and not even a decent Drunk Uncle could make up for the weaker jokes, that weird interruption part, or Colin Jost messing up the ending.

Bikini Beach Party – The only part of this that was entertaining is that you knew at some point that the whale was going to explode all over Charlize and Taran Killam. We got a few laughs here and there out of Charlize doing the entire scene with gunk all over her face, but it’s not a great thing when a show forces you to work this hard to get to the laugh. There’s no reason that anyone would want to talk to a dead whale!

Overall, what a dud this episode turned out to be. There were few highlights, a ton of misses, and Charlize struggled mightily with the cue cards and with playing different characters. Unfortunately, Barbara Walters was not even on stage at the end. Grade: D.

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Photo: NBC