Here’s a rundown of how it went:

*     The show kicked with Fred Armisen doing Moammar Gadhafi, explaining to the U.N. that his speech earlier in the week was all messed up ’cause of jet lag.  Armisen generally makes me chuckle, so there’s that, but this was mostly lame.

*     New opening credits!  No Casey Wilson or Michaela Watkins anywhere to be found!

*     Megan Fox comes out and automatically struck me as seeming way more confident than I would have expected.  Too bad the writers stranded her with a dead-end sketch involving her assuming that even though she didn’t remember posing for all those nude photos of her on the internet, she must have … ’cause, you know, they’re on the internet, so they must be real.  She’s dumb; get it?  Lame.

*     Funny faux-commercial for Bladdivan, a drug that helps you conquer your fear of urinating in public.

*     Fox and Kristen Wiig — mmm, Kristen Wiig — play stewardesses who very calmly explain to passengers an increasingly terrible set of circumstances they are about to have to face.  It wasn’t as funny as that makes it sound, and usually, when the first post-monologue sketch is this lame, you know you’re in for a bumpy show.  Wiig gave it her all, though, and Fox did a decent job, too.

*     Will Forte plays a guy who’s gone to Russia and is bartering with Bill Hader over which Russian bride he wants to purchase.  His choices are Megan Fox and Fred Armisen … who is $10 cheaper.  This one was fairly amusing, mainly because all of the people in it not named Megan Fox are very, very funny.  But Fox was only called on to vamp, and she that quite well, so score for her, I guess.

*     A Digital Short in which Fox is on a date with an incredibly awkward Will Forte, playing a SWAT team commander (!) who has skipped work to go out with her.  Pretty funny, and I was actually mildly impressed by Fox’s ability to seem down-to-earth.  Is it possible that she could be a decent actress?

*     Kenan Thompson reprises his Grady Wilson infomercial character, this time hawking a DVD called Grady Wilson’s Burning Up the Bedsheets, another demonstration of ludicrous sex moves.  Fox shows up to help illustrate, and it’s another fairly amusing sketch.  Damn it, I just laughed at Kenan Thompson!

*     U2 comes out and performs a passable version of “Breathe.”  As usual, Bono seems mildly insane.

*     Weekend Update, mildly amusing.  Thompson shows up again, doing his Jean K. Jean bit; this character is one of THE worst in the SNL repertoire, and why anyone allows Thompson to do it is a mystery to me.  Flipside of that: Wiig ought to be required to do her Judy Grimes bit at least once a month.  Hilarious.   Mmmm, Kristen Wiig…

*     Fox doing an infomerical for live lounge, a phone sex line.  Mildly amusing at best.  The writers seem to have abandoned any attempts at giving Fox any actual comedy to perform; too bad, since in the stewardess sketch she seemed like she could actually pull it off.

*     U2 again, this time doing a good version of “Moment of Surrender.”  Bono does some freestyling, and does a decent job with it.

*     New cast member Jenny Slate, whom I find rather attractive, gets to debut a new character: Dawn, the host of Biker Chick Chat.  This is exactly what you’d think it would be, except not particularly funny.  It mainly consisted of Slate, Wiig, and Fox saying “frickin’ ” and “friggin’ ” a lot, except for the time Slate fluffed it and actually said “fuckin’ ” instead.  The look on her face as soon as she realized it was one of pure horror; it was kinda of adorable.  I hope she doesn’t get in too much trouble for it.

Video below:

*     Another Digital Short, this one featuring Andy Samberg showing up for a Movie Night date with Megan Fox at her apartment.  She introduces him to her roommate, Optimus, a fat guy wearing an Optimus Prime mask.  He “transforms,” which involves taking all of his clothes off except for the helmet.  Then Bumblebee shows up, and he transforms, too.  Not a classic, but amusing enough.

*     And now, another episode of Your Mom Talks to Megan Fox While You Get Ready!  It’s Wiig playing somebody’s mother, engaging in awkward mom-chat with Megan Fox while Fox’s friend is finishing dressing.  Amusing thanks to Wiig, who is currently one of this show’s real saving graces.

*     Fox outros, and just like Coldplay did last season, U2 gets to play part of another number.  It’s one of my favorites, “Ultraviolet (Light My Way)”!  Bono is swinging from the ceiling on the microphone cord!  NBC only broadcasts half of it!

Final thoughts

Not a particularly good season premiere, but I did chuckle a fair amount, and I come away frmo this having more respect for Megan Fox than I had when the show began.  In that sense, I guess it was a success for her.

Next week: Ryan Reynolds and Lady Gaga!

Well, because…

(Oh, how can I say this?)

Because…

…because I just laughed at something Bobby Moynihan did on SNL.

There!  I said it!  Are you happy now?!?

SNL Weekend Update Thursdays 2×2

Of course, when I say I “just” laughed at something Bobby Moynihan did, what I actually mean is that over two hours ago, I laughed at something Bobby Moynihan did, but you get the idea.

Nah, like, the opening skecth on SNL was of President Obama doing interviews with various lower-tier cable networks like Bravo and the Food Network, and Moynihan showed up playing that ultra-douchey dude with the spiked blond hair from the Food Network.  He did a pretty good job of it, and I guffawed.  There, now it’s out and I don’t have to feel so awful anymore.

It was a pretty funny show, all in all.  Fred Armisen did his David Paterson schtick, which is always good for a laugh; I’m a big fan of when he gets right up in the camera, which he did while the closing credits ran.  It’s not exactly sophisticated humor, I guess, but it tickles me for reasons I cannot fully explicate.

There was also a moderately amusing Darrell Hammond/Bill Clinton bit, which was capped by a decently amusing “cameo” by Megan Fox, who hosts this Saturday on the season premiere of the regular show.

Pretty good chuckles, all in all.  I can already sense that I’m going to miss this when its time slot is taken up by Community.

Parks and Recreation 2×2, “The Stakeout”:

Heh.  When I wrote down the title of this episode on my notes, I wrote it down as “The Steakout.”  Boy, am I dumb.  Mmmm … steak.

Another strong episode from this supposedly much-improved series.  Dear America: watch, won’t you?  Thanks ever so much.

Leslie has planted a community garden at the bottom of the pit, and she and Tom discover that somebody is growing marijuana in it, so she diecides they should stake — steak? — the place out to catch the perps in action.

This just so happens to be near Ann’s house, and Leslie does the requisite amount of spying on Ann as Mark picks her up for their first date (which seems to actually go relatively well).

Best laughs probably go to Nick Offerman.  Ron has aggravated a hernia, so he’s sitting at his desk literally trying not to move either his head or his torso.  Now, that’s funny enough, but slap a mustache and a grimace on top of it, and you’ve got gold.  Throw Aubrey Plaza into the mix as an intern who — either through neglect, malice, or ignorance, and it’s hard to tell which — decides to make things even worse by “helping,” and you’ve … well, you’ve still got gold, but it’s now gold co-starring Aubrey Plaza.

Andy shows up to his new home in the pit, and Leslie and Tom invite him into their van to help with the stakeout.  He eats a candy necklace whole and goes into a weird sugar-high sort of fugue.  Big laughs again.

Coming home from their date, Ann and Mark see what appears to be a thief breaking into a van and call the cops.  It’s actually Tom, who is quite belligerent to the officer who arrives to investigate.  That officer is played by Louis C.K., who hauls Tom off to jail, and it’s up to Leslie to turn into a hardassed government official in order to get him out of dutch.  Amy Poehler gets her biggest laughs of the episode in this scene.

It’s always nice to see Louis C.K.  I still miss Lucky Louie, one of many shows HBO cut down far too early over the past few years.  Here, it looks like maybe he’s being set up as a potential love interest for Leslie; that’d be an interesting new direction.

I’m still loving this show, and if you ain’t with me, then yore agin me.

The Office 6×2, “The Meeting”:

David from corporate shows up to have a private meeting with Jim, and of course, this makes Michael go into full-on paranoia mode.  Long story short, Jim ends up getting promoted to co-manager of the Scranton branch alongside Michael.

This is a major plot development, to the extent that a show like this can have major plot developments, and I find that while I certainly enjoyed the episode, I have almost nothing to say about it.

“Almost,” I said.

Michael asking Oscar for advice on how best to about enjoying a colonoscopy; Michael enlisting Andy to help him infiltrate the secret meeting by hiding inside a makeshift cheese cart; this episode’s “that’s what she said.”  If it had nothing else going for it, this episode would be worthwhile for those moments alone.

Community 1×2, “Spanish 101″:

I said in my review of last week’s episode that I was going to give this series a minimum of four episodes, and I intend to stick by that cavalier and ill-judged comment, but I gotta level with you: I regret those words a bit, and wish I could just go ahead and pull the ripcord on this one right now.

Here’s the thing: this show is just not funny.  I appreciate that humor is a subjective thing, I accept that fact and live with it, like the knowledge of my own mortality and the fact that no matter what I do, people are going to continue to watch VH1 reality shows.  I’d stop all of these things if I could, but hey, it’s an imperfect world.

What Community wants to be — what it desperately wants to be — is 30 Rock.  It wants to be the kind of show where there is no real need for the plot or the setting to make any but the loosest kind of sense, thereby allowing the characters to go into hilarious flights of randomness that are designed to showcase how wacky life can be, and how wacky people’s ideas can be, and how wacky people’s ideas about humor can be.

Community, you are not 30 Rock, and odds are, you never will be.

Whay do you expect me to accept the idea that all these people like Jeff so much?  What has he done to earn even the vaguest semblance of this sort of adulation?  What, specifically?  And, see, I wouldn’t care about that if you were funny, Community; I wouldn’t care at all.

I’ll give you points for at least trying to give Checy Chase something funny to do this week; you failed, but at least you recognized the necessity.

I’ll also give you very tiny props for making me chuckle about twice during Senor Chang’s monologue.

Starburns, though?  Fairly lame.  I get that community colleges are probably full of peole who think they’r ecooler than they really are, and I’d guess that out of all of those posers, a few of them probably have an undue amount of vanity over their sideburns.  But “Starburns”?  Fairly lame.

Because I was reckless enough to commit to four weeks in a public forum, you’ve got two more chances to impress me, Community.  Don’t squander them.

Well, another week, another wretched episode of Saturday Night Live.  Talking about how bad this show has become is about as timely as taking to the streets to champion integration, but that’s not stopping me from loading up on picket signs and Joan Baez songs.

The show begins with the standard political sketch, this time one in which Jason Sudeikis’s Joe Biden gets all buddy-buddy with Fred Armisen’s Barack Obama following the Prez’s return from Europe.  I enjoy how Sudeikis plays Biden as the world’s biggest d-bag, but there was nothing else to recommend in this sketch.

Then, host Zac Efron comes out and seems to be painfully uncomfortable.  The writers do not throw him a bone.  How did these monologues get so unrelentingly awful?  Are they being written by Jar Jar Binks?

Kristen Wiig and Michaela Watkins come on and do their Kathie Lee Gifford and Hoda Kotb bit.  It hasn’t been funny one single time, and this does not break that losing streak, tough Wiig gives it her all.  Efron comes out to play Cody Gifford; he’s not funny, but then again, he never had a chance.  Armisen gets a chuckle playing Penny Marshall.

We next get a science fair skit with Wiig’s Gilly character.  Now, I love Kristen Wiig as much as the next 34-year-old pervert, or a lot, whichever is more, but I can’t imagine why anyone would find Gilly to be funny.  That’s coming from the guy who lurves the Target Lady skit.  Will Forte gets a couple of chuckles, that’s about it.  The writers utterly strand Efron yet again, and even worse, they put the odious Bobby Moynihan in the skit.  That guy has yet to make me laugh.

Next, a weird faux commerical with Sudeikis playing the head of a Direct Mail Marketing firm.  It’s satirical, I guess, but it’s not funny; it’s basically just saying, hey, we’re responsible for identity theft.  Ooh, good burn, SNL!

A mildly amusing sketch follows in which Andy Samberg and Efron play underage guys who are thrilled to get served in a bar.  Then, they notice there are ten-year-olds in the place.  A few laughs are milked from kiddies dropping shots into their beers, but the sketch goes absolutely nowhere, a frequent problem on this show.  Again, Efron is wasted!

The Yeah Yeah Yeahs come on.  They’re pretty good.  Karen O is hot, in my favorite kind of way, meaning that she’s a little bit ugly, knows it, and does not give even the tiniest shit that people might think that about her.  She’s makes me think about what it might have been like in the ’80s if Angelica Huston had been the lead singer of Siouxsie & The Banshees.  I should listen to this band more.

Weekend Update is usually good for a few laughs, and it’s true to form this week.  I still miss Amy Poehler, but whattaya gonna do?  They pull out a few good character bits, with the always-fun Hader/Armisen New Jersey Gay Couple making a long-overdue appearance.  Michaela Watkins, who is really growing on me, comes out to do her bit as Angie the movie blogger; she’s funny, especially when she freaks out over seeing Zac Efron.  Finally, we get the return of Jon Bovi, the Bon Jovi opposite band comprised of Sudeikis and Will Forte.  I’d laugh at them just for Forte’s mustache.  And really, that’s about all I laughed at this time; it’s a tired bit.

Then, there’s a High School Musical 4 skit, in which Efron returns to the school to let the next group of seniors know that people don’t sing and do choreographed dance numbers in college.  Efron looks like he’s gonna do a chowder-toss out of his throat through the entire thing, and again I have to put up with the cretinous Moynihan.

Next is a weird sketch in which Efron is going off to Germany to fight in WWII.  He’s leaving on a train, and girlfriend Casey Wilson runs alongside of him … even once the train picks up a shitload of speed.  This, predictably, goes nowhere, and only the talents of Casey Wilson save it from being downright embarrassing.  As it is, she elevates it to the level of mere suck.

Jason Sudeikis is directing a Jeno’s Pizza Rolls commerical with Samberg and Efron, with Armisen playing their mother.  “She” can’t deliver her line — “But I’m your mother!” — pleasantly, instead screaming and breaking things on every take.  Efron seriously looks as if he’s about to bolt from the set, call his agent, and fire him on the spot.

We get another Yeah Yeah Yeahs performance, of “Maps,” a song I actually knew already.  It’s pretty good, although it’s a song that essentially goes nowhere; I prefer to think they did this as a sly commentary on how most of the comedy bits have been going for the past few years.  Karen O continues to look a bit like the female lead from Prizzi’s Honor, but I kinda dig her.

Then, by God, right at the end, we finally get a decent sketch: Sudeikis playing Efron’s older brother, giving him advice for a big date.  He advises giving his girl a foot rub, and demonstrates how to do it on Efron.  This ends with Sudeikis toe-raping Efron with his mouth, and it’s actually kinda funny.  It’d seem weak on a good episode, but here, man, it’s like light shining down from heaven.

Poor Zac Efron.  He was given literally NOTHING funny to do on this show.  Worse, several of his skits involved him being humiliated in way or another, with Fred Armisen sloshing milk onto his shirt or Jason Sudeikis sucking his foot.  Not a high point for Efron’s career, and I suspect we’ll never see him on this show again.

I’m amazed by how shitty this show can be.  It isn’t always; the Alec Baldwin episode this season was good, as was Dwayne Johnson’s, not to mention the classic political stuff during the election season.  But this week’s was so bad, it makes me wonder how such awfulness can come from professional writers.

I’ll say this, the cast is great.  Except for Bobby Moynihan, whom I despise, they’re all actually quite good, and most of them are tremendous talents.  They should ALL jump ship while they still can, because this show can only drag them down unless drastic improvements are made.  I may miss Amy Pohler, but I damn sure don’t blame her.