“Saturday Night Live” style equals uproarious, yet classy approach.
The popular show’s season debuts are usually outstanding, thus the 34th
season debut did not fail to reach our expectations.
Tina Fey made a brief return to her old “Saturday Night
Life” self. Can one ask for more? The only thing better than Tina Fey is Tina
Fey filling the shoes of Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin,
accompanied by a pregnant Amy Poehler, hilariously impersonating Sen. Hillary
Clinton.
The two delivered a so-called “nonpartisan message” meant to
diminish the damage caused by sexism in presidential campaigns, which also aimed
at Sarah Palin’s views on foreign affairs, as well as global warming.
Saturday night’s show was the most watched “Saturday Night
Live” episode since December 17, 2002, when former vice president Al Gore was
the guest host and U.S.
rock band Phish was the musical guest. In addition to this, Tina Fey and her ex
“Weekend Update” co-host helped last week’s season premiere become the
top-rated “Saturday Night Live” season debut since September 29, 2001.
Not bad at all, I’d say.
Furthermore, the impressive performance by the two
comediennes compensated for the fact that Democratic presidential candidate
Barack Obama, who was due to appear during the program, did not show up. According
to the Washington Post, executive producer Lorne Michaels was the one to get
the bad news on Friday night, approximately 24 hours after being assured that
the senator would unquestionably take part in the show.
“His people called and said they felt they had to shut it
down because of the storm,” Lorne Michaels told the Washington Post. “I pleaded
with them to wait and make the decision on Saturday morning, but they felt they
had to do it then. There was a sensitivity to how it would be perceived --
whether he would be criticized for doing it while disaster struck.”
Returning to the Fey-as-Palin and Poehler-as-Clinton act, we
might as well linger a little bit longer on the clash between the two major
public figures, as many suggestions were made regarding the fact that Sarah
Palin has less foreign policy experience. However, while the
Poehler-impersonated Clinton was blowing her own
horn, Fey’s Alaskan governor wittily said: “I can see Russia from my
house!”
An even funnier moment was the one when Poehler said she opposed
the Bush Doctrine and Fey’s Palin naively admitted she had no clue what the
policy of her own country's president was – a not-so-subtle reference to Palin’s
seeming puzzlement in relation to the subject during her first important
interview last week on ABC.
The host of the 34th season debut of the
late-night NBC program was none other than swimming champ Michael Phelps, who
won eight gold medals at last month’s Beijing Olympics. “This seriously is like
the ninth best moment of my life,” the Golden Boy said in his opening monologue.
We sure enjoyed it, too.
“Saturday Night Live” averaged a 7.4 household rating/18 share
in 55 markets metered by Nielsen Media Research. The latest season opener outrated
2007’s season premiere by 64%, with top local scores belonging to Baltimore, the hometown of Michael Phelps, (14.7/29), St. Louis
(12.6/25) and Oklahoma City (11.0/21).
