Saturday Night Live: Jean Smart can’t save a lazy, light-on-laughs season opening

Saturday Night Live makes television history by celebrating its 50th year on the air. This momentous occasion could not have come at a better time, with the presidential election heading into its final stretch.

Apropos of all this, the season opener kicks off with news coverage of rallies from both candidates, starting with Kamala Harris (Maya Rudolph). Everyone’s favorite “funt” (fun aunt) lays out her vision for the future: “It’s like I say to my husband Doug when he leaves his phone at the Chili’s: we are not going back.”

She introduces her running mate, excitable midwestern everyman “Coach” Tim Walz (Jim Gaffigan landing the coveted role after much speculation over the summer) who loudly showers the vice-president with his “BDE”, or “Big Dad Energy”, before turning the stage over to her husband, Doug Emhoff (Andy Samberg). The “second gentlemensch” looks forward to decorating the White House for Christmas (“The theme will be Hanukah”), before busting out some ridiculous LA slang directed to the opposition (“Don’t start no stuff won’t be no stuff Donald!”). The delivery is classic Samberg.

We move from the party atmosphere of the Harris rally to the dire third hour of Trump’s event. The former president (James Austin Johnson) rambles miserably from behind a giant bulletproof glass as the audience files out. He pines for Joe Biden (“What we wouldn’t give to have him stand next to me and be old”) and screams deranged attacks on immigrants (“They’re eating the dogs, they’re eating the cats, they’re taking your pets and doing freak-offs”). Finally, he introduces his own running mate, JD Vance (Bowen Yang), hilariously dragging away the protective glass away with him just as Vance walks on stage.

As soon as Vance starts talking about Project 2025, the Trump campaign cuts the feed and we return to the Harris rally, where she brings on stage a senile and angry Biden (Dana Carvey), who gives the “Live from New York … ” sign-off alongside her.

After 20 years and at least half a dozen cast members and guest stars trying and failing, we finally get a good Biden impression. Not surprising that it had to come from, arguably, the greatest impressionist in the show’s history.

While not a classic political sketch by any means, this was still above-average considering their recent track record, and the star power on stage was befitting of the season premiere.

Nothing against Jean Smart (or musical guest Jelly Roll, I suppose), but you’d think that for such a huge episode, Lorne Michaels would bring in a bit of a bigger gun to host, someone who has history with the program.

That said, Smart is no slouch – a great dramatic and comedic actor of stage and screen, she nails her monologue, delivering jokes like the pro comic she plays on Hacks, before singing a rendition of Cole Porter’s I Happen to Like New York.

Of course, SNL couldn’t let any of this summer’s flash-in-the-pans go by without draining the last bit of relevance from them, so in the first sketch, we get the Hawk Tuah girl (Chloe Fineman), and the Chimp Crazy lady (Smart) competing on a game show alongside Bad Bunny (Marcello Hernandez) and the scandal-ridden North Carolina gubernatorial candidate Mark Robinson (Kenan Thompson). It is, if nothing else, mercifully short.

A commercial for Spirit Halloween sees the junk chain portray itself as a savior of struggling communities: “Spirit Halloween: when you need us, we’ll be here … for six weeks. ‘Cause on November 1, we’re gone, and all of this stuff will be in the dumpster.” The standard SNL clever idea that never brooks more than a chuckle.

Next is an emergency meeting between Smart’s romance author-turned-AP algebra book scribe and editors at Scholastic, who are worried about her manuscript, which includes lines such as “Clarissa stared into the eyes of the Italian, losing herself completely in his musk. He had the mind of a child, but the hands of a gorilla, and there wasn’t an inch of her body that hadn’t been explored. What’s four minus six?” There’s a lot of dead air throughout, and too much repetition of the exact same joke, but Smart’s droll delivery keeps things on track.

Following the first performance from musical guest Jelly Roll – seriously, no offense to the guy, but they couldn’t get someone like Paul Simon, or Bruce Springsteen, or even Miley Cyrus for an episode 50 years in the making? – it’s on to Weekend Update. Colin Jost and Michael return for their 10th go-round as a team behind the desk.

Jost opens with breaking news from Trump’s rally earlier in the evening, in which he straight-up called Harris a “mentally disabled person”: “I cannot believe Trump admitted he lost the debate to a mentally disabled person.” Che, meanwhile, sets his sights on the indicted New York mayor, Eric Adams (Devon Walker), who he brings on to the desk as the first guest. Adams proclaims his innocence and stands by his record: “I got crime off the streets and on to the sidewalk and the subway.” Walker does a good job matching Adams’s swagger, but his impression isn’t as good as former cast member Chris Redd’s.

Their next guest is beloved baby pygmy hippo Moo Deng (Yang, in a glistening leather costume), who goes all Chappell Roan, demanding people not “yell my name or expect a photo just because I’m your para-social bestie or because you appreciate my talent [of] having a slippery body that bounces” and self-righteously refusing to make an endorsement in the presidential election, in between shouting “hose” and gulping down huge sprays of water from a garden hose just offstage. A smart way to use one buzzworthy public figure to send up another, and one of Yang’s funnier performances on Update.

On CNN’s documentary series History of Sitcom, we see footage featuring the original actor chosen to play Lucy on I Love Lucy. Smart’s Edna Burken is a dramatic actor entirely out of her element, boozing, chain-smoking and violently haranguing her closeted husband Ricky (“ Tu . Soy . Gay! ”). This one is over before it even begins.

Returning once more to the dry well of summer fads, the next sketch centers around Talk Talk, a talkshow hosted by Charli xcx (Yang). She runs down an explanation of what Brat is, interviews queer nightlife icon Susanne Bartsch and CNN icon Kaitlan Collins about the Middle East conflict and reproductive rights, and sings a song about canvassing. Insufferable from beginning to end.

Then, the cast of a Real Housewives edition have a giant blowout at a Mexican restaurant while their poor waiter tries to set down two plates of sizzling hot fajitas. This promises some fun slapstick carnage, but it never gives us the payoff.

A flat ending to a flat episode, outside of the decent cold open. This would be par for the course were it not for the occasion. One of the adjectives best used to describe this era of Saturday Night Live is lazy, and this episode certainly put that in sharp relief. Let’s hope Lorne Michaels and company are saving the golden fireworks for later in the 50th anniversary season.