Saturday Night Live: “Cameron Diaz/Mark Ronson and Bruno Mars”
(Episode 40.07)

When one looks back at the thirty-nine and a half seasons of SNL, there is certainly more bad than good. SNL’s success rate tends to keep pace with MLB sluggers—where three hits out of ten pitches is considered elite. This is why many of us keep coming back each week. We are panning for comedy gold. Perfect hilarity is not even a possibility. But a dozen true laughs? That’s not out of the question.
While many aging Hollywood ingénues struggle to sustain a viable career in their 40’s, Cameron Diaz’s star keeps rising. This year alone has seen the release of three major comedies: The Other Woman, Sex Tape, and next month’s Annie. So it’s fitting she cap off her big year by hosting Saturday Night Live. And it’s not surprising that she turns in a solid, workman-like performance—Diaz is consistently funny, and committed to the task at hand.
“Cold Open: Capitol Hill” gives us SNL’s first truly biting political satire of an otherwise benign season. Whereas the starting point of the sketch is certainly dated (“I’m Just a Bill” first aired on ABC in 1975, the same year Saturday Night Live debuted on NBC.), the subject of the satire is fresh: President Obama’s recent executive order on immigration, which many believe to be an overreach of executive power. SNL gives us a fed-up Obama literally and repeatedly kicking a would-be Republican immigration bill down the capitol steps. This is on-point work: brash, juvenile, politically savvy, and actually funny. It’s good to see the political wing of the Saturday Night Live writing staff sharpen and focus. It bodes well for Season 41 when a national election is upon us again.
Two successful, pre-taped segments (remember when these were craftily dubbed “digital shorts”?) “Back Home Ballers” and “The Fight” remind us that SNL’s field production work has never been better. Kyle and Beck’s listless high school hallway scuffle, presented as a kind of quasi-produced YouTube recap by dim-witted auteur Chris Fitzpatrick, was one of the episode’s most hilarious moments. “Ballers,” the episode’s only Thanksgiving-themed sketch, takes aim at self-absorbed millennials headed home for the holidays. Like “The Fight,” “Ballers” feels fresh—a new direction for the show that appears to be working.
“High School Theater Show,” a spoof of pretentious student-made “message plays,” was strong, primarily because the cast seemed to be enjoying themselves immensely as they performed the sketch. There have been a few distracting moments of performance drudgery this season… like maybe the cast wasn’t fully in sync with the writers’ intent. Here, everyone seems to be on the same page.