snl

Live from New York... it's Miley Cyrus, hosting and performing for the season premiere of 'Saturday Night Live'!

Alex Trebek is a cultural institution, a beacon of knowledge and grace under pressure. Everyone loves him. Which is why it’s always amusing to watch the unflappable host of Jeopardy say silly words and phrases in that reliable deadpan of his. A recent episode of the immortal game show saw him forced to say the name “Turd Ferguson,” which should amuse anyone with a passing knowledge of modern comedy.

Reese Witherspoon has had an interesting time lately: the producer of Gone Girl, nominated for an Oscar for her performance in Wild, and the recent star of the not-so-funny Hot Pursuit. But Witherspoon is funny — she’s also immensely charming and versatile (obviously), and she knows how to light up a room. Unfortunately, she’s not really the star of this week’s SNL, suffering from the same fate that befell Scarlett Johansson in last week’s underwhelming episode. Throughout the bulk of the episode, Witherspoon is more like a supporting player than the star, and I’m growing concerned about how terrible these female-hosted episodes have been lately and what that says about SNL in general.

Last night’s generally unremarkable episode of SNL peaked early when it took advantage of its proximity to Mother’s Day to do something kind of remarkable. As part of her opening monologue, guest host Reese Witherspoon declared that the show was going to mark the occasion by bringing each cast member out with his or her mother...and then forcing them to apologize for their childhood transgressions.

It’s not coincidence that Scarlett Johansson guest hosted SNL on the same weekend that Avengers: Age of Ultron opened in theaters, so of course the show had to do a Marvel sketch of some kind. And unlike the previous Avengers sketches cooked up for Chris Hemsworth and Jeremy Renner, this one is actually a pretty effective dig at the Marvel movie machine. More importantly, it’s very funny.

SNL is always so good at creating eerily realistic fake advertisements for products that will never, ever exist unless humanity truly goes insane, and the show’s Depend Legends sketch is no exception. There is no way anyone is every going to want to own adult diapers that have images of famous figures from history and popular culture printed on them, but this ad makes that reality feel a little too real.

Whenever SNL breaks out the “guest host answers audience questions” template for the opening monologue, it feels like a sign that the writers waited until the last possible moment to write this bit and couldn’t come up with anything better. And yet, when they use this formula for Chris Hemsworth, it works for one reason and one reason alone: their guest host has a couple of famous (and not-so-famous) brothers who can join him on stage.

It’s an SNL sketch premise so silly that it feels like it belongs in the early ’90s, not 2015. Taking place in the distant future, the scene asks us to believe that chickens have evolved to be more intelligent than humans and that a chicken could command a spaceship of human beings and, most importantly, that a crew member played by guest host Chris Hemsworth would fall in love with the chicken.

Dakota Johnson shows off her comedic chops as the latest host for Saturday Night Live last night (Feb. 28).

The gallant extravagance of NBC’s 40th anniversary SNL special left us less-than-enthused for 50 Shades of Grey star Dakota Johnson to return us to normal this Saturday, but our first March host will verily bring the thunder. Thor himself, Chris Hemsworth will take the SNL stage as our March 7 host, but what musical accompaniment mayeth the Asgardian Avenger summon?

Mike Myers and Dana Carvey donned the torn jeans and crazy hair one more time in a Wayne's World sketch during the Saturday Night Live 40th Anniversary Special.

In what was one of the absolute highlights of the Saturday Night Live 40th Anniversary Special, Andy Samberg and Adam Sandler teamed up for a self-referential digital short about all the times the actors on the show have broken character by cracking up.