‘Saturday Night Live’ review: Game of ‘Game of Thrones,’ Bradley Cooper, ‘Fox & Friends’

For the first time, we found an episode of “Saturday Night Live” hosted by Zach Galifianakis to be brilliantly entertaining! We’ve know for quite some time that the “Hangover” actor is a very funny man, but there had always been something missing with some of his shows. While not all of them were necessarily hits this time around, they far outweighed the misses. Plus, there were so many surprises that the show did a good job of keeping us on our toes.

The best thing about this episode is that we want to see Zach host another one, which we never would have said in talking about him the first two times around.

What worked

Fox & Friends – This is an opening we can get behind, mostly because this segment is starting to get increasingly absurd. Bobby Moynihan is quite possibly the greatest part of this bit every time it happens, and the list of corrections are a DVR user’s slice of heaven. We’re not really looking at this as political so much as the fact that it is funny.

Zach Galifianakis monologue – It is still pretty surprising that someone like Galifiankis ended up becoming a major celebrity, since his comedy is really so wacky and offbeat that he seems perfect for the indie crowd. His jokes during the monologue did not all hit, but we absolutely loved how daring and original that they were. (Honestly, we didn’t even notice the f-bomb.)

Game of “Game of Thrones” – This is something that we probably had a little bit higher hopes for compared to what we ended up seeing, mostly because the entire sketch was one-note: One guy at a “Game of Thrones” game show, while dressed as a dragon, was repeatedly asked things about the real world that he knew nothing about. The cameo by Nikolaj Coster-Waldau (Jaime Lannister), though, was enough to make this worth watching.

Jennifer Aniston lookalike contest – Okay, through this entire sketch we thought that Aniston was going to show up, mostly because we could not figure out for the life of us why this would be remotely relevant to reference “Friends” in 2013. Then, Bradley Cooper and Ed Helms each made an appearance! Somehow, this made what was otherwise a ho-hum sketch (see above) suddenly worth it.

“Weekend Update” – What an awesome “Weekend Update” we had this week. Not only did we have some good jokes and a Google Glass spoof, but there were also appearances from two of our favorite characters: James Carville and the Girl You Wish You Hadn’t Started a Conversation with at a Party, who is basically a combination of Britta from “Community” mixed with Sadie from “Awkward” mixed with the pure awesomeness that is Cecily Strong.

Michael Jordan’s wedding – This, to us, was one of those things that should have been terrible, but was such a train-wreck of basketball jokes that it was fun to watch.

New Balance – This is the perfect “SNL” commercial: A spoof on the popular shoe brand, which is apparently only worn by chubby white people. Informative, no?

What didn’t work

Match.com spoof with Martha Stewart – This could be been pretty funny, but the Martha impression really wasn’t that great. Thanks to that, all we really had here was just a commercial stuffed full of predictable jokes.

M&M store – This one we’re a little conflicted on. The racist character just felt so dated and unoriginal, even if Zach’s delivery was great, and the setting was definitely something that was different and slightly comical. (We can’t imagine that M&Ms really enjoyed it.)

Galifianakis’ “house” show – We don’t remember the name of this sketch, but that may be for the best since it was one joke without a celebrity cameo: A loser guy trying to have a talk show where everything was edited in post.

What was your take on this “SNL” episode? We want to hear your thoughts below! Also, be sure to check out the link here to watch some more highlights from this season.

Photo: NBC