Saturday Night Live promo: Can Scarlett Johansson and Lorde turn things around?
The main reason for the excess pressure at the moment is fairly simple: This is a show that really does need to prove itself as something that sunk last week as a result of some sort of a fluke. The Octavia Spencer show was bad, and it wasn’t because of the host. The material just wasn’t there for her, and it felt like a series of one-note premises eventually beaten down into the ground over time. Did we really need a sketch about how black women’s names are supposedly similar to prescription drugs? Not exactly, and the same goes for whatever they were trying to do with the sketch later that featured Spencer as some sort of edgy “friend” who really wasn’t edgy at all.
We want to think that the writers were saving most of their edgier material for Scarlett, or we at the very least hope that this is the case. Given that this episode marks her officially joining the famed five-timers’ club, we’re especially hoping that there is some sort of celebration where some other past hosts come out and pay tribute to Scarlett in the way that they first did Justin Timberlake when he was graced with the honor. (With that, isn’t it time that Just hosted the show again? We certainly think that it’s been long enough.)
Another thing that would easily help SNL tremendously is if they were able to snag another big appearance from Alec Baldwin as Donald Trump, given the fact that he was not there for the Spencer show, and neither was Melissa McCarthy as Sean Spicer. The show can clearly survive without them, but the problem is that when you get some casting that is this inspired and this funny, you almost become spoiled by it and you want it around all of the time.
The new Saturday Night Live promo below featuring Scarlett Johansson and Lorde is pleasant enough, and Beck Bennett tries to get a good joke or two in here. The problem is that in this limited time-frame, it’s almost impossible for anything to ever be that funny since you have to establish and executive a premise in just a matter of seconds.
What do you want to see on this weekend’s SNL episode? Be sure to share in the comments!
Meanwhile, head over here if you missed the other promo featuring Scarlett. (Photo: NBC.)