Emmy Episodes: Saturday Night Live

It’s always my policy to watch every Emmy-nominated episode each year, which leads me to sample a handful of shows that I don’t tune in to on a regular basis. For the sixth year in a row, I’m making a special effort to spotlight each of those installments to offer my perspective on shows that I don’t review each week.

Saturday Night Live: Season 46, Episode 9 “Host: Kristen Wiig” (B-)

There’s a stark difference in how hosts are incorporated into each of the sketches when they used to be regular players on the show, and it’s very obvious that Kristen Wiig feels completely at home here. This isn’t her first nomination – she contended four times when she was on the show and then twice as host, back four years after her most recent bid, which was four years after the previous one. I do like Wiig but she also has a very particular style to most of her characters, with one especially familiar face popping up at the very end of the episode, Sue, the woman who gets so nervous about surprises that she can’t help but spoil them. Her funniest bit may have been the one opposite Bowen Yang where they switched gender roles for the USO song. Teaming her up with Maya Rudolph and Kate McKinnon made for an entertaining if over-the-top opener, and what I noticed more than anything was how prominently-featured Rudolph was in this episode, which of course spells Emmy trouble for Wiig since Rudolph is both the defending champ and a fellow nominee this year who also hosts her own episode. On another note, this definitely was not the best instance of Colin Jost and Michael Che writing jokes for the other to say without seeing them first, though I’d also argue they’re far from the best Weekend Update team this show has had, even in my very limited screening experience. I think I enjoyed Amy Poehler and Seth Meyers best but, again, I haven’t seen all that much given the incredible volume of content this show has produced in its forty-six-year history.