Celebrity Gogglebox
- Huh, I have heard of this show. I think the premise of it is kinda odd but then again...our equivalent of this here in the US seems to be certain episodes of 90 Day Fiance, so it's not that odd.
- Always nice to see George Fouracres as Prime Minister Andy Burnham. Not sure what to make of Emmas impression of Liverpool Mayor Steve Rotherham (seems more like she's doing a Paul McCartney impression but I guess there's only so much you can do with any Liverpool accent) but I like the meta twist to it (even if they didn't really do anything with it) and I liked George just downing the entire can of those Twiglets. Oh...apparently these two guys were actually on this show in real life recently which is why they did this cold open in the first place.
- Nice to see Celestes' Claudia Winkleman again. Not sure I like Jacks' Graham Norton (I mean, I can see why Jack should play him out of everyone else in the cast and it's his studio they're currently using so again, I get the extra "meta" layer to it) but Freddies' Prince William has grown on me a bit.
- Upon rewatch, I can see what Jacks' going for with his Graham Norton impression but he plays him a bit too hyper and doesn't quite have a strong handle on Grahams' voice/accent and between this and his Harry impression...let's face it, Jack just doesn't have the right face for parodying and impersonating bearded men over the age of 25.
- Ah, so THAT's who Allison Hammond is. Cohost of the Great British Bakeoff. Hmm...feels like someone should've corrected me on that by now given how popular that show is here as well. Larrys' Noel Feilding is funny and I liked Anias' impression of Nigela Lawson.
- Ah, so they DID end up giving Paddy a chance to play Andy Burnham while he was actively in office after all...and they didn't even make him shave his mustache. I don't think this new wrinkle of future Andy Burnham telling present day Andy Burnham to tell the British public to buy extra sardines and beans during an apocalyptic cyber attack really works here. It doesn't really make a ton of sense and almost drags down this sketch.
- This cold open reminded me of the cold open that SNL US did two years ago where Maya Rudolph as Kamala Harris just watched the Vice Presidential debate at home (only mildly derrogatory).
- That wasn't a very good cold open but this one slightly improved on the formula for that one (mainly with more of a variety of different impressions). Although I feel this was a bit long, it didn't need that much tightening aside from the "future Andy" bit. B-
Monologue
- Cynthias' coming out strong and confident but rather...clipped and restrained. Oh, riiiiiiight....that's the entire joke of this monologue. She really is a good sport to go along with this...as mild as it seems.
- I did get a kick out of the various photoshopped shots of her stone faced on a rollercoaster and laughing at a funeral.
- As stylish and charismatic as Cynthia is presenting herself here this is starting to lose a bit of steam and seem more like one of those sadly disappointing SNL US monologues from a host you were expecting a bit more from. Thankfully, that vibe doesn't carry over to the rest of the episode.
- I did like the whole British Bake Off rant and I liked how they used that to bring back Larry's Noel Fielding we just saw a few minutes ago. C+
The Cher Witch Project
- Ok, as soon as I saw the buried Grammy being uncovered and hanging CD labeled "Believe" I could tell exactly what this was going to be. Hell, as soon as I saw the words "In 1994" on my screen I could tell what this was going to be.
- Well, at least the one decent element of recent eras of SNL US that SNL UK borrowed is the ability to make something entertaining out of a paper thin premise...or just a really, really dumb pun.
- One thing I like about this is how it straddles the line between super flattering modern SNL US impression piece they'd do now and snarky, unflattering impression piece that any other sketch show in the late 90s/early 00s (particularly MAD TV) would've done.
- God, it's like Freddie, Jack and Celeste were the only cast members in this who didn't have a Cher impression they wanted to get on air. I mean, even Al frigging Nash did one (again, slight MAD TV vibes there) but also Ayoade and Cynthia did non singing impressions that even made sense on a purely visual level.
- I'd have to say Annabel did the best Cher impression here with Emmas' being a distant second. In fact, Annabel has such a great voice in general that she even made the "fuck it, let's just sing along with Cher" ending to this quite charming. I appreciated that they actually used that as a fake out to an actual horror movie disembowelment instead of just leaving it there. B+
Princess In The Tower
- Hey, a Cynthia/Hammed two piece right at the top of the show. Nice!
- So...it's basically just Rapunzel but instead of her hair Cynthia Erapunzel just lets down one extremely long Guinness Book length toenail, which...how the hell would a full grown man climb with his full weight without breaking it ir tearing it off, I mean, come on?
- This may be one of the most All That 90s Nickelodeon level gross out pun based premises I've ever seen with some forced commentary on modern gender dynamics sprinkled in but Cynthia and Hammed are playfully snapping at each other doing their damndest to make this work.
- I liked how Cynthia couldn't stop herself from wildly fumbling over that line about throwing her own piss and shit out of the window with her hand (and she wasn't even breaking).
- I thought the bit with Celeste revealing herself to be Cynthias obvious lesbian partner who thanked her for scaring off Hammed. It was a little too telegraphed and predictable but the rest of this sketch was performed well enough that it doesn't bring this down. B-
Nigerian Wicked
- Hey, another two hander but with Cynthia and Ayoade. Now, this episodes' cooking with heat!
- Already I love the satire of "Nollywood" films just cheaply made foreign knockoff cinema in general. The cheap VHS quality visuals and even cheaper green screen level special effects are killing me (especially the cheap, spotty green paint on Ayoade before they went off on their journey to the "emerald, white and emerald city).
- Cynthia and Ayoade are performing the hell out of this and Hammeds narration is really making this for me.
- Speaking of 90s Nickelodeon, this one did remind me a lot of those "Blockblister" sketches from the Amanda Show, but...MUUUCH BETTEEERR!!! (sorry, had to to it...iykyk)
- This is really one of those rapid fire paced pretapes with too many individual details to pick out a ton of specific moments I liked but I'd have to say Hammed was my favorite part of given how much his intense detailed narration of the entire plot permeated this and how funny he was as the cheap broke wizard serving the girls Baileys' Irish cream.
- I also liked the attempt at singing from Ayoade at the end when Hammed mentioned that "the whole thing is a musical".
- ...and apparently that actually is Cynthias' real name. A-
B&B Couples
- Now, we're getting a piece that pairs Freddie and Cynthia as a couple with Emma as the host and Annabel and Al playing straight support roles.
- I like the sheer absurdity of Cynthia and Freddies couple as over the top as they were.
- Among the individual lines I liked were the ones about them following the Simply Red tribute band "Sligthly Red" and Al saying Lenny Henry was rude to his aunt once.
- Among the physical bits I liked were Freddies description of his breakfast burrito and Cynthia keeping a teabag in her mouth.
- Anyone else get slight Fridays vibes from the humming bit? (Iykyk)
- The insane birdwatching/birdcalling bits bordered on being "a bit too much" and just the right punctuation between bits of madness.
- I wasn't crazy about the ending reveal that Freddie and Cynthia were intentionally scaring off Al and Annabel so they could pull off a hit job but it was a quick little button that wasn't enough to bring down the whole sketch or anything. C+
Weekend Update w/Paddy & Ania
- Paddys' Best Jokes: Markle Allegations, PHP, BBC Radio 4, Bond Screen Tests, Lodge Ablaze, Darryl Halls' 80th birthday, Phone Addiction, End of Summer,
- Anias' Best Jokes: Budget Week, John Healey, PHP, Glee Reboot
- Freddie and Annabel as a Lego and boiled egg that were just pulled out of (spoiler alert) Anias' bum (of course) may be quite the iffiest of premises but they're playing it absolutely perfectly...and it was pretty much the perfect length...and by the ideal current SNL Weekend Update anchor.
- Hey, the return of Jack Shep as Scrimpsh! This was fun. I liked his "scary" costume suggestions and his 'losing my brogues" story.
- I wasn't sure about that "Mr. Sloth" ending but I love the absolute seriousness with which it was handled.
- Pretty strong Update to end the first half of series two on. Good on them. B+
John and Melissas' Wedding
- So, this is just Cynthia and Ayoade as Hammeds' rapper cousins because they were the only wedding "band" he could book at the last minute. Let's see where this goes. Anyone else getting heavy Punkie Johnson vibes from Ayoades' character right out of the gate?
- Ok, so the main joke is that Ayoade is performing a "911 Is A Joke" style rap about her water getting shut off and shouting at Cynthias' character if she tries to even get one bar in edgewise.
- This is OK. Feels like a cross between Devon Walker and James Austin Johnsons' characters "Milly Pounds And Shirty" from SNL US mixed with a little bit of Martin Short and Paul McCartneys' intro to the latters performance of "Simply Having A Wonderful Christmas" time...also from SNL US. Also, pretty much everything else about this premise feels very SNL US coded but Ayoade and Celeste are doing most of the heavy lifting necessary to put this over.
- Apparently, Headie One was that male rapper that Ayoade bought on stage with her at one point.
- I liked how the ending was just Ayoade pointing out to Celeste that others were doing more to ruin the wedding once Celeste confronted her (I did get a kick out of the brief shot of the guy just stealing silverware) but having Celeste and Hammed just be like "you're right, fuck it, let's dance" right after this was just too cheap of an out for me. Still, pretty decent second to last sketch of the show. C+
Modern Music
- So, would I be accurate in describing this as across between Charli XCX, Billie Eillish, Katseye and...Khia or Peaches?
- I was expecting this to basically be a Celeste/Ayoade piece but I guess this is Annabels thing? Oh well, she's got a musical theater background. She could pull this off.
- Hmm...I feel like I've seen a clip from the HBO show "Insecure" that's...quite similar to this.
- Ok, I don't know how else to describe this one (without getting this post flagged with another "adult content" warning) but...I will say that I really liked Annabels' real open and honest approach to this.
- I especially all the times Annabel just straight up tried to interrupt the song (especially with the "metallic" comment and the entire post confessional ending).
- The only other thing I can say about this is that I'd highly recommend you check it out for yourselves on YouTube since it was one of the few standalone clips from this episode already posted there (thank God). B-
Jools' Hour
- Neat of them to use their daylight savings time weekend to give us this little post credits format break just for a brief callback to one of the better pretapes of last season. Also nice to know that their Daylight Savings time is closer to ours. C+
Ranking SNL UK Series Two From Best To Worst
- Cynthia Erivo/Blossoms (10.24.2026)
- Amelia Dimoldenberg/Rachel Chinouriri (09.26.2026)
- Jamie Demetriou/Royal Blood (09.19.2026)
- Danny Dyer/Sasha Keable (10.10.2026)
- Jeff Goldblum/CMAT (09.12.2026)
- James Norton/The Streets (10.17.2026)
Ranking All Of SNL UK From Best To Worst
- Jamie Dornan/Wolf Alice (03.28.2026)
- Hannah Waddingham/Myles Smith (05.09.2026)
- Cynthia Erivo/Blossoms (10.24.2026)
- Amelia Dimoldenberg/Rachel Chinouriri (09.26.2026)
- Jamie Demetriou/Royal Blood (09.19.2026)
- Ncuti Gatwa/Holly Humberstone (05.16.2026)
- Tina Fey/Wet Leg (03.21.2026)
- Jeff Goldblum/CMAT (09.12.2026)
- Danny Dyer/Sasha Keable (10.10.2026)
- James Norton/The Streets (10.17.2026)
- Nicola Coughlan/Foo Fighters (04.25.2026)
- Riz Ahmed/Kasabian (04.05.2026)
- Aimee Lou Wood/MEEK (05.02.2026)
- Jack Whitehall/Jorja Smith (04.11.2026)
Overall Thoughts
- Ok, that episode was definitely a strong contender for "Best Episode Of Series Two" so far. It got off to a strong start even with some stuff that felt taken from some of SNL USs' weaker tropes but then hit the ground running with some more original writing and concepts.
- Cynthia was a real lightning rod of a host who seemed to effortlessly pull the best performances out of this cast especially Ayoade and Hammed who somewhat unsurprisingly had one of their best nights tonight and absolutely dominated this show. Annabel, Al, Freddie and Jack quietly had great nights too. Celeste, Jack, George and Larry seemed to still have scaled back presences but not enough to be a demerit on this episode (although they should be using George much more in cold opens in general).
- Good to see after the doldrums of last week that the cast and crew came together to realize that this was the one show this season they absolutely couldn't afford to biff in any way. Really, the only other less than complimentary thing I can say about the episode at this point is that the musical guest didn't impress me (which...if that's the worst thing you can say about an SNL UK episode, that counts as a victory at this point).
Closing Thoughts
- Well, as of this writing it's been confirmed that SNL UK is coming back in January but no host or musical guest has been confirmed yet. I mean, it's a damn shame they have to go on a two month break after just getting their momentum back but I think they've earned it and I'm already looking forward to what they come back with in the new year.
- At least SNL US is still actively airing new episodes during this time. I know they have quite a bit of a hole to dig themselves out of right now, but there's no where for them to go but up, right? They've got an episode coming up that they know they can't afford to biff either (followed by an "all bets are off" episode and then what I'm sure will be an easy layup).
- Anyway, I hope you enjoy reading my reviews of those episodes real soon and I hope you've already read and enjoyed my review of the SNL US season 33 finale with Steve Carell and Usher that I just published a day or two ago. Most of all, I hope you've already enjoyed hearing the latest episode of the We Heart Hader podcast reviewing that Steve Carell/Usher episode of SNL with special guests John Trumbull and Darin Patterson of the SNL Nerds podcast. See you real soon!
No comments:
Post a Comment