We get it Seth, being on SNL as Weekend Update anchor and being the head writer on the show during an excruciatingly tedious period (when blandos like Kristen Wiig, Bill Hader, and Fred Armisen reigned supreme) is the best thing that ever happened to you. We know that you looooooooved it there, and were seemingly going to die in that Weekend Update chair like you’d been appointed the Pope of the place, but you’ve got to let it go.
It’s bad enough that you were the second longest cast member (Daryl Hammond and his excellent arsenal of impressions was the first) with a staggering 253 episodes over the course of 13 years, and probably would have been there for several more years had they not handed you a better, higher paying job as host of Late Night. It’s also revealing that you originally floated the idea of doing both Late Night and still keeping your Update chair. At a certain point, you just look really desperate.
So what do you do to distinguish yourself on your big first night? What do you do to show that you’re not an inside-SNL only acquired taste that most people outside 30 Rockfeller really don’t like that much? [I never heard anyone say “I can’t wait to see what Seth Meyers will get up to on SNL tonight…I hope his delivery of the same jokes the other guys made on Monday is razor-sharp.”]
Well, naturally, you get Fred fucking Armisten (the third longest running cast member on SNL with an astounding 12 years on the show) to be your band leader so we can see his damn face every night, and the two of you chummy SNL club mates can make the same kinds of tedious repartee that made it unbearable whenever Armisten would trot out one of his characters to the Update desk (still cringing over Garth and Kathy with Kristen Wiig, I’m sure she’ll be there by the end of the week). The worst moments of last night’s show were when Meyers (cold and snarky) and Armisten (a fussy, monster-league oddball who thinks Portland, Oregon is the funniest city on Earth) tried to appear like human beings having a conversation…both of their styles belonging better on an NPR talk show than an edgier program coming on at 12:30. [You get the idea both of them would have been asleep for hours by the time the show actually airs.]
Oh, and who’s your first guest? Amy Poehler. Now, I love Amy Poehler, but she worked beside you at the Update desk for years. This is probably the single worst first guest you could have picked to give us something we haven’t seen before, and really separate yourself from the only job any of us know you from prior.
Who was your second guest? Vice President Joe Biden. That’s right, the sitting Vice President of the United States was asked to come out second to an SNL alum. If that doesn’t show priorities, I don’t know what does.