Ferrell's Return to SNL Falls Short

Will Ferrell's return to Saturday Night Live as a host last night was a disappointment. Don't get me wrong, it wasn't a total bomb...but it was disappointing.

Ferrell seemed to be his usual self, but I felt that the writing on the show let us down. I know that the creative-types behind the show didn't want to hide behind Ferrell and his broad cast of popular characters...but, maybe they should have.

The writers tried way too hard to come up with skits that were different, but just didn't work. In fact, a couple of them - even in the first 30 minutes of the show - were horrible. That's the problem -- there is no excuse to have any bombs in the first 35 minutes of a Ferrell show. The pepper-mill skit and the Jaguar skit were good, but there certainly were no additions to Will Ferrell's Top 20 SNL moments. Even the tried and true Jeopardy skit failed to succeed (when compared with past Jeopardy's). This sketch has been on hiatus for years...so, could they really not come up with anything better than what they wrote last night?

Ultimately, the show was better than it has been recently, but that is not saying very much:

But Saturday Night Live has never suffered as badly in comparison to past years as it has this season, which marks its 30th on the air. Ever since Will Ferrell took his antics to Hollywood three years ago, SNL has been in a slow, painful swoon. And this season, it has finally hit rock bottom, with an enormous, awkward thud. Each show has been worse than the last, each skit as funny as a death sentence.