
- #Saturday night live performer showcase 2017 movie#
- #Saturday night live performer showcase 2017 professional#
- #Saturday night live performer showcase 2017 tv#
Perry has played SNL before, but never with the kind of big stage ambition she put forward in this episode. The sketch argues that what we identify as evil actually matters-if only to disqualify the things that aren’t.īoth Katy Perry musical performances-“Swish, Swish” and “Bon Appétit”-were spectacular pieces of live production and performance that both elevated the songs and raised the bar for Studio 8H music performances. This is dangerously wicked satire, but the show’s writers walk that tightrope with great precision. Johnson’s performance here, as the creator of a child-molesting robot, is his best of the night. “World’s Most Evil Invention,” an annual meeting of the International Mad Scientist Society, may be the season’s darkest (and most thrilling) sketch. Strong’s Gemma is one of her best characters. I’ve spent a lot of time praising the show’s pre-tape production unit in the past, so I’d be remiss if I didn’t point out how stunning an accomplishment this sketch was. What a wonder of live television production “Gemma With Dwayne Johnson” is! The incredible set, the live directing, the immaculately executed water gag: this was a very expensive and complicated piece to pull off. (Moynihan’s sitcom Me, Myself, and I was just greenlit by CBS and will debut in the fall.) Expect both of these actors to excel in television and film roles in the coming years.

Bayer in particular has really grown into one of the show’s most valuable players over the past two seasons. And no matter what you think of McKinnon’s achingly earnest Hillary farewell last November, this riff dismisses it-or at the very least diminishes it.īoth Moynihan and Bayer have served as reliably funny, blue collar cast members-meaning their workmanlike approach to comic character building has been an incredible asset to SNL writers and producers.

This is a season roll call and bow-nothing more, nothing less.

But the piece offers little if any political bite at all-which is odd given the week that was in U.S. What is clear is that SNL believes its Trump-inspired work is this season’s raison d’être (a claim the president himself might assert), and that they deserve a moment of congratulations for that. At once a curtain call for the basket of Trump deplorables SNL has given us this year (including Scarlett Johansson as Ivanka, but without Melissa McCarthy’s Sean Spicer) and a riff on one of this season’s most earnest and controversial moments-Kate McKinnon as Hillary singing “Hallelujah” the Saturday after Leonard Cohen died and Hillary Clinton lost to Donald Trump-it is difficult to discern what the intent is. “Hallelujah Cold Open” is a strange opening to the last show of the season.

Could it be that The Rock is just too good at this?
#Saturday night live performer showcase 2017 professional#
But it is this precision-honed over years of film acting, stunt choreography and professional wrestling-that ultimately makes his SNL work come off flat.
#Saturday night live performer showcase 2017 movie#
The action movie star-turned- SNL guest host is a role Johnson himself pioneered, and it’s a role he willingly inhabits and plays to perfection.
#Saturday night live performer showcase 2017 tv#
But it is strange to see him occupy TV comedy’s center stage. And he is here, hosting SNL, due to the release of his new action-comedy Baywatch. Johnson is the biggest movie star in the world right now. Seeing him there, standing alongside host legends Alec Baldwin and Tom Hanks in “Dwayne Johnson Five-Timers Monologue,” is interesting. Saturday Night Live’s 42nd season will be remembered as one of its best-even though the season’s finale, hosted by five-time guest host Dwayne Johnson, isn’t its best episode.
