Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars
BEASTMAN
amidst a LOM conspiracy, host tries to find the Beastman of Studio 8-H
— I love “Deion Sanders hosting” being one of the strange Studio 8H happenings that Ellen lists off.
— G.E. Smith makes a somewhat rare sketch appearance in what ends up being his final episode in the SNL Band.
— Speaking of final episodes, Kevin mentions that tonight’s his last show after 9 seasons in the cast (a record at the time). Him assuming the show will be holding a surprise party for him is funny.
— Another amusing SNL dig at poor Joe Piscopo.
— I love the mock dramatic, tense scene in Lorne’s office.
— Mark’s very brief, non-speaking appearance, in which he’s told something by Duchovny and then fearfully ducks out of the scene when a loud scream is heard off-camera, ends up being his ONLY appearance all night. And this is the season finale, so you especially gotta feel bad for the guy. Thankfully, tonight doesn’t end up being his final episode.
— Elliott’s scream while saying “There he is!” when pointing out a walking-by Farley is freakin’ hysterical.
— Ah, Farley doing his “The Chris Farley Show” routine one last time…
— Overall, one of the better cold openings of this season. This was very fun, well-done, a good X-Files spoof, and a unique approach to a backstage sketch.
STARS: ****
MONOLOGUE
even people from host’s old neighborhood haven’t heard of him
— A fairly tepid opening bit with Duchovny acting like unknown independent films he did early in his career are what people know him for.
— The pre-taped interviews with people from Duchovny’s old neighborhood are okay and have some laughs.
STARS: ***
YOU THINK YOU’RE BETTER THAN ME?
defensive people; Naomi Campbell cameo
— (*sigh*) Kevin in his final big role.
— A slow, weak start to this sketch so far, aside from the “You cannot read” bit with Adam.
— Even the set for this gameshow sketch looks dull, half-assed, and unfinished.
— Geez, they’re not even showing the questions that get chosen on the board like we usually see in gameshow sketches from this era. Yep, it’s official: this sketch’s set was definitely half-assed. What happened? Did they not have enough time to complete the set before airtime?
— Duchovny’s rants always ending with “burn the place down” is making me laugh, even though it’s repetitive. Duchovny’s delivery of it is what makes it work for me, which is more than I can say for the rest of this sketch so far.
— Good long-winded answer written by Duchovny on his card.
— The bit with Duchovny and Naomi Campbell is falling flat.
STARS: **
ZAGAT’S
Hank Gelfand is in agony when Beverly’s sister (host) shows up
— Like the last time they did this sketch, Farley has some funny one-liners and big smiles into the camera after each time he reads en entry from the Zagat’s guide. I especially like his one-liner “Ravioli? Holy cannoli!”
— There goes Farley trying to make Adam crack up by romantically rubbing his leg.
— Adam’s cranky one-liners are funnier than the ones in the first installment of this sketch. I especially like his memorable line “GIVE ME CANCER NOW, GOD!”
— Yeah, not sure I need the addition of Duchovny in drag.
— Good ending bit with Adam downing a whole bottle of sleeping pills.
STARS: ***½
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Leave Virginia Alone”
WEEKEND UPDATE
LAK is depressed because her friends are getting married & having babies
Adam West (MMK) refuses to accept the new incarnations of Batman
ADS woos single moms with a suggestive Mother’s Day song
— A very weird and kinda awkward segue into Laura’s commentary.
— Interestingly, Laura’s SNL tenure has been bookended by an Update commentary as herself in both her first and last episode.
— Who’s idea was it to dress Laura like a Chinese restaurant waitress for this commentary?
— Laura’s commentary is a little better than the one from her first episode. In her first commentary, I said that there were nice hints of dark humor that I wish she went further with. Thankfully, she has gone a little further with it in tonight’s commentary, but still not far enough. Oh, well. For what ends up being the last impression that the underused Laura will ever get to leave on us on SNL, this overall commentary isn’t bad.
— Michael as Adam West is dead-on casting. He looks just like him here.
— Michael warns Norm that he’ll be forced to use his Bat Ray on him, but when reaching to pull it out, he awkwardly says “It’s here in my belt” and then moves on with his commentary without pulling the Bat Ray out. Was that an intentional joke, or is this YET ANOTHER example this season of SNL being too lazy to hand Michael a prop gun, much like what happened in the notorious Alternating Guitarists sketch from the Sarah Jessica Parker episode?
— Kinda odd how they’re having Duchovny play Robin in a small walk-on role during the Adam West/Batman commentary, as it seems like a role that would usually go to a cast member (can Mark McKinney get some love, SNL?).
— I almost thought we were getting a “Marion Barry loves crack” punchline for the THIRD consecutive Update, but the punchline of tonight’s Marion Barry joke turned out to humorously subvert the expected crack punchline.
— Hmm, a change of pace for Adam’s usual Update songs. There’s no guitar this time, and he’s singing his song in the style of an R&B slow jam. This has potential, and something about this change in song style feels fitting for what ends up being Adam’s final SNL episode (which he wasn’t aware of at the time).
— Fun song from Adam here, especially when the music really ramps up when he starts doing a raunchy variation of his famous Turkey Song.
STARS: ***½
PRICHARD’S
New Englanders turn violent when out-of-towners don’t go for folksy ways
— Unusual teaming of Elliott, Farley, and Morwenna, once again proving what an awkward mishmash this season’s cast is.
— I love the very dark turn this takes when Elliott removes his glasses and starts going on an accent-less intimidating rant to Michael.
— The repetition of the gag seems unnecessary, but I do love Elliott’s delivery whenever he goes on a dark rant to customers.
— Considering my negative attitude towards a lot of Adam and Spade’s performances this season, something feels oddly satisfying seeing their snarky characters in this sketch get pummeled to death.
— Even in a co-starring role, Morwenna is barely given any lines.
— Since this ends up being Elliott’s final SNL sketch, I wish it was something more along the lines of his typical oddball sketches, which have been a (mostly) consistent bright spot of this season. I wonder if his Penis Measuring Device sketch would’ve been more fitting for tonight’s season finale, since he actually is leaving SNL after this episode.
STARS: ***
RICKI LAKE
a hermaphrodite (ADS) & some celebrity impersonators
— I always love Spade’s Joan Rivers impression.
— Much like Michael as Adam West earlier tonight, Duchovny as Richard Gere is another example of spot-on casting.
— Norm’s non-attempt at a Sulu impression is very funny in that typical Norm-esque way. I really can’t understand why they’ve used Norm so rarely in sketches this season. He’s usually always a bright spot, which this season really could’ve used more of. Thankfully, they would go back to regularly using him in sketches next season.
— They’re repeating the same joke from the last Ricki Lake sketch of Ellen playing various audience members (she’s even wearing the same various costumes that she wore last time). It’s not working for me as much this time.
— Boy, the whole bit with Adam as a hermaphrodite and everybody’s disgusted reactions has not aged well at all. Judging it by 1995 standards, it’s still not funny.
STARS: **
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Maggie May”
HORIZON REALTY
the former lead singer of a rock band (JAM) is now a real estate agent
— A rare occurrence of Jay having a lead role in two consecutive sketches, something that has a bit of a bittersweet air in retrospect, as this ends up being his final SNL episode.
— In his SNL book, Jay discusses how he had a hard time getting this sketch on the air. It kept getting cut after dress rehearsal from the last few episodes. In the version that was cut from the Courteney Cox and (I think) Damon Wayans episodes, Norm played the husband role that Duchovny plays here, while in the cut version from the Bob Saget episode, Saget played the husband role. Jay says in his book that he wishes the Saget version made it on the air, as he felt that of all the guys who played the husband, Saget gave the funniest performance. By the time this sketch FINALLY made it to a live show, Jay was so burned out on performing the sketch that he had an angry and tired attitude during it, which he felt hampered his performance.
— I’m actually liking Jay’s energy and delivery here (perhaps his real-life angry attitude during this sketch is actually helping him nail the screechy rocker performance), but I’m not caring for the sketch itself. The gag of Jay seamlessly transitioning back-and-forth between screaming rock star and calm-voiced real estate agent isn’t providing many laughs and is just going on and on.
STARS: **
POLAR BEAR CAGE
JAM, TIM, ADS, CHF, NOM are eaten by a polar bear at the zoo
— Well, folks, we’ve officially arrived at the final sketch of this era. And a pretty famous sketch from this season at that.
— Geez, is this Tim’s first appearance all night?!?
— An oddly fascinating and entertaining sketch. Also, a lot of really bizarre but memorable lines throughout this, such as Tim’s inexplicable Mr. Dictionary insult to Norm, “That bear ripped off their heads like so much volleyball”, “Who are you, The Mighty Thor?”, the “arse” callback with Norm, etc.
— I love Norm’s musing when he’s the only person left.
— Hmm, interesting ending with Duchovny revealing that this sketch was shown for future hosts as a warning of the type of people you have to deal with all week long, pretty much confirming my suspicions that this sketch was Farley, Sandler, et al. just enacting typical backstage conversations and antics of theirs (well, minus the “getting brutally mauled by a polar bear” thing, of course).
— Overall, I love this sketch, though I feel like I shouldn’t, as the humor was stupid, random, and nonsensical, we got a typical season 20 display of self-indulgent hamminess from both Farley and Sandler, and we got one of season 20’s favorite recurring gags: fluid-spurting. But dammit, it all works for me in this sketch. Maybe because I take this sketch as some kind of meta commentary on this notorious season as a whole. Or maybe because the cast is playing themselves. Either way, this sketch feels like fitting closure to the Bad Boys era.
— Speaking of this sketch possibly being a meta commentary on this notorious season as a whole, I wonder if the idea of the cast getting gruesomely killed off in this sketch one-by-one was intended to be this season’s version of how the last notorious season, season 11, ended with the cast burning in a fire. If that’s the case, then part of me kinda wishes they used the entire cast in this Polar Bear Cage sketch, though considering the large size of this cast, maybe seeing each of them being killed off one-by-one would’ve been too long and redundant.
STARS: ****½
GOODNIGHTS
SNL director Dave Wilson [real] says so-long with “tape roll”
IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS
— A somewhat meh season finale. This episode was far from terrible, but aside from two big highlights with the cold opening and Polar Bear Cage sketch, as well as the funny Zagat’s sketch, things were kinda forgettable tonight. Even Norm Macdonald’s Weekend Update was a little more on the average side than usual. At least there weren’t any true bombs tonight, though. Even the worst sketches tonight were merely weak instead of painfully terrible like the worst sketches of most episodes this season.
— This would end up being the final episode for many cast members, as SNL would go through a big overhaul over the summer. The only cast members who return next season are Norm Macdonald, Mark McKinney, Tim Meadows, David Spade, and Molly Shannon.
— The experience of reviewing the notorious Season 20 was not what I was expecting. Before doing these reviews, I had always hated season 20 with a fiery passion, like most SNL fans do. And thus, in this SNL project of mine, I came into this season expecting to give the most consistently negative reviews I’ve EVER given so far. Instead, I surprisingly ended up finding myself discovering lots of silver linings, hidden gems, and just okay moments. In fact, believe it or not, I actually feel this season had more good or okay episodes than bad. I certainly can’t say that about the other two notorious SNL seasons (seasons 6 and 11). I also feel that the number of general highs this season far outnumber that of the other two notorious seasons. That being said, when this season had lows, which it most certainly did, it was fucking BRUTAL. This season contains some of the worst episodes, sketches, moments, and decisions in SNL history. Some new lows were reached this year, and there was a COUNTLESS number of individual problems both on and off-screen that make this such a troubled season. Overall, I came out of this season realizing that, while it’s undoubtedly still a bad season, it’s markedly better than I ever gave it credit for in the past.
— I’ve now officially covered all of SNL’s three most notorious seasons. While I’m not sure how I would rank them from best to worst, I can officially say that all three of them can be filed under “undoubtedly bad, but not quite as bad as its reputation”.
MY PERSONAL CHOICE OF “BEST OF” MOMENTS FOR THIS EPISODE, REPRESENTED WITH SCREENCAPS
HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Bob Saget)
a mild step up
MY PERSONAL CHOICE OF “BEST OF” MOMENTS FOR THIS ENTIRE SEASON, REPRESENTED WITH SCREENCAPS (Note: These picks were hastily made off the top of my head and will naturally be missing some deserving sketches. I don’t have enough time to do full, thought-out “Best Of” picks for this whole season)
HOW THIS OVERALL SEASON STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING SEASON (1993-94)
a mild step down
My full set of screencaps for this episode is here
TOMORROW
The dawn of a new era. A revamped SNL debuts with a mostly-new cast and mostly-new writing staff. Mariel Hemingway is our season premiere host.