Benedict Cumberbatch is irrelevant as this week’s host of SNL in new promo
Doctor Strange is ready for his second hosting stint, but will the show be strange enough to be worthy of him?
Aux News Benedict Cumberbatch
In a promo for this week’s Saturday Night Live, Benedict Cumberbatch announces he’s this week’s host if he… could just… get a word in… edgewise among cast member Ego Nwodim and five of the approximately 42,500 members of the band Arcade Fire. It’s a cute bit, and Cumberbatch seems comfortable and energetic.
Not that there was doubt: Cumberbatch has previously acquitted himself extremely well on the show; this will be his second hosting stint. During his first episode, he demonstrated an appealingly self-deprecating sense of humor in the damn-they-really-nailed-it game show sketch “Why Is Benedict Cumberbatch Hot?”
Attitude aside, the host lends the show more than enough contemporary and historical material to work with: He’s coming off an Oscar nomination for The Power Of The Dog, an appearance as Doctor Strange in the recent Spider-Man: No Way Home, and his own damn superhero sequel in Doctor Strange In the Multiverse Of Madness. (And has it really been 12 years since Sherlock debuted and five years since it ended?)
And yes, the highly populous Arcade Fire is the musical guest, for the sixth time. The band has a great sense of humor, so it’s possible they’ll be incorporated into at least one sketch. Which reminds me of “New Cast Member or Arcade Fire?” another game show sketch that aired on the Tina Fey-hosted 2013 episode. (For some reason, game show parodies are only guaranteed slam dunks when Fey’s involved; “Meet Your Second Wife”—one of the best such sketches the show has ever done—aired on her watch in 2015.) This was a very effective way to introduce that season’s featured players—unfortunately, all of them were quickly ejected from the show except for Kyle Mooney.
The big question this week is how the show will handle the dominant news story—the seemingly imminent overturn of Roe v. Wade. This writer is not sure this writing staff is up to the task of nailing topical cultural moments. Although this year’s earlier episodes (Oscar Isaac, Zoe Kravitz) had plenty of charming and clever bits, the show’s most recent cycle was a downward spiral: The Jerrod Carmichael episode whiffed the Will Smith Oscars incident, sketch-wise, and Jake Gyllenhaal and Lizzo were foiled by a parade of childish premises.
Will the show leave the big news to “Weekend Update” to handle (as Michael Che did so well on Carmichael’s week) or at least attempt something as cutting as Supreme Court members showing up in Chevy Chase and Jane Curtin’s bedroom to referee their sexual activity? Not to be too cutely circular, but lately the show’s idea of strange involves body fluids and ephemera from TV commercials past. This cultural moment demands more from the show; there’s far too much that needs to be said.
24 Comments
“The big question this week is how the show will handle the dominant news story—the seemingly imminent overturn of Roe v. Wade. This writer is not sure this writing staff is up to the task of nailing topical cultural moments.”You’re totally right here. If only this show had one, just ONE, recent example of tackling specifically the issue of abortion in a profound and powerful way, I would be more confident. But, as a person who is paid to watch and review every episode of SNL, I trust that no such sketch has aired within the last six months, as you surely wouldn’t have written what you did if such a sketch existed.
* honka * honka *
Sorry—what? I’ve been drowsing on this bed of money I’ve earned from watching and reviewing SNL … I don’t understand …
Every article like this I read, the more convinced I am that Aaron Sorkin’s Studio 60 was ahead of its time.
Please don’t. I still have PTSD from watching that series.
And yet…it feels unfortunately prescient in its depiction of what audiences want from comedy now. Will this late-night monologue reinforce the appropriate political message? Will this comedic sketch tell the nation how to respond to a tragedy, since of course everyone is looking to us?I mean, the behind-the-scenes conversation at SNL that led to Hillary Clinton singing a Leonard Cohen song after Trump won? The Studio 60 episode that never happened.
I think what audiences want from comedy now is for traditional sources of topical comedy to make a statement, have a point of view. Then we can hash it out — in our living rooms, here, on social media. The supposed desire to “reinforce the appropriate political message” I don’t buy—just make a point, make it funny, and we’ll process it on our own time. On one hand, the nation isn’t looking to SNL to the extent the (terribly self-important and generally terrible) Studio 60 posited. But SNL made its reputation as a destination for cutting topical comedy. Every week that it turns in a fuzzy Carol Burnett Show take on current events, it’s not living up to that heritage, and people who remember are going to point that out.And I didn’t love Hillary doing “Hallelujah” either—it was too sentimental for my taste.
I agree that you invite that to some extent if you’re doing topical, politically-minded humor. But I know I’m not the only person—maybe not even in this conversation—that increasingly feels like “is this funny?” is far from the highest priority for a lot of political comedy these days. It was supposedly Seth Meyers who coined the term “clapter,” and it’s a great phrase, but both his old and current shows certainly indulge in it. A lot.Not that I can entirely condemn political comics for giving audiences what they seem to want. What you said about audiences looking for their political comedy to “have a view”? I would respectfully amend that to “have the view that exactly parrots their own, with no deviation.” And in my opinion, it’s led to a lot of predictable, homogenized comedy.
Benedict WHO?!!?
Wong.
It’s amazing that this article finds an equivalence between the overturning of Roe v. Wade and the Will Smith Oscar slap. Ten years from now, do you really think anybody is going to be talking about Roe v. Wade?
Perfect.
You won’t be allowed to, or an Aunt will report you.
I regret that I have only 1 star to give for this comment.
The only equivalence is that this era of SNL is not great at reacting to events in the news, pop-cultural or political, in sketches. That’s the extent of the critique.
This writer? Could you sound more pretentious?
Yes!
“And yes, the highly populous Arcade Fire is the musical guest, for the sixth time.”Fifth – mick jagger dont count
I wish this show could find an identity. It’s trying to be too many things at once; there’s no cohesive tone, no real “approach” to things, it’s just a sort of “throw Twitter/TikTok references at the wall and see what sticks” and…wait, sorry, I just figured out their whole thing, nevermind.
The promo just reminds me that Cumberbatch is “only” 6′ tall. I don’t know what it is, maybe his build, but up until a couple years ago I would’ve sworn he was about 6’5″.
It’s the neck.
Lorne must really love Arcade Fire. Their amount of appearances on the show seems to be massively above their level of cultural relevance.
You must really hate Arcade Fire.
Or! I think they’re kinda ok but unremarkable and not pervasive, which a band that has been on SNL a bunch of times should probably be the opposite of!