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    ‘Saturday Night Live’ Returns with Pete Davidson, Ice Spice

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    Pete Davidson — who left the cast of the show in 2022 — will host the season premiere on Oct. 14.With the five-month writers’ strike ending last week, a certain corner of television is coming back to life: first with the return of the late night shows on Monday, and now with “Saturday Night Live,” which will kick off its 49th season on Oct. 14, the show announced Wednesday on X, formerly known as Twitter.Pete Davidson, who left the long-running NBC sketch comedy program in May 2022 along with other big-name cast members including Kate McKinnon and Aidy Bryant, will host the season premiere; the Bronx rapper Ice Spice will be the musical guest. On Oct. 21, the Puerto Rican superstar Bad Bunny will serve as both the host and musical guest. On Wednesday, “S.N.L.” also posted a welcome to its newest cast member, Chloe Troast.Season 48 was supposed to run through May 20 but concluded early because of the strike. The Writers Guild of America, which represents more than 11,000 writers, reached a tentative deal with the major entertainment studios on Sept. 24, and the guild’s board members approved of the deal on Sept. 26, announcing then that the strike would end the following morning. SAG-AFTRA, the union that represents tens of thousands of actors, on strike since July, returned to the negotiating table this week.While Davidson is also an actor, starring in the recently released film “Dumb Money” and the Peacock dramedy “Bupkis,” the actors’ union does not consider hosting to be a violation of their strike. In a letter to members that was posted online on Wednesday, SAG-AFTRA made clear that union members who appear on “S.N.L.” as either hosts, guests or cast members are not in violation of their strike rules because they are working under the Network Code Agreement, not the contract the union is striking.“The majority of our members who are regular cast on ‘Saturday Night Live’ had contractual obligations to the show prior to the strike,” the letter also states. “Many are under option agreements that require them to return to the show if the producers exercise their option, which the producers have done.” More

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      Pete Davidson Plans F.D.N.Y. Community Service to Resolve Crash Case

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      The former “Saturday Night Live” cast member faced a reckless driving charge in California. His father, a New York City firefighter, was killed responding to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.Pete Davidson, the comedian, actor and former “Saturday Night Live” cast member, has reached an agreement that allows him to resolve a reckless driving charge in California by doing community service with the New York Fire Department, officials said on Monday.Mr. Davidson is a Staten Island native whose father, Scott, was a New York City firefighter who died while responding to the World Trade Center attacks on Sept. 11, 2001 — an experience that helped inform Mr. Davidson’s 2020 film, “The King of Staten Island.”The reckless driving charge, a misdemeanor, was filed against Mr. Davidson last month by the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office. It said he crashed a Mercedes-Benz into a house near Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills in March, The Los Angeles Times reported. No one was injured, The Times reported.On July 19, a judge placed Mr. Davidson into an 18-month diversion program, according to a statement from the district attorney’s office on Monday. He must pay restitution, attend 12 hours of traffic school, visit a morgue to learn about what happens to victims of reckless driving, and perform 50 hours of community service.Mr. Davidson’s lawyer has indicated that the community service “is likely to be completed at” the New York Fire Department, the statement said. Details of the diversion program were reported earlier by TMZ.A lawyer for Mr. Davidson did not respond to a request for comment.Amanda Farinacci, a Fire Department spokeswoman, called Mr. Davidson “the son of a 9/11 hero” and, without offering details, said the department “would be happy to provide” him a chance to complete his service. (Mr. Davidson can also complete the diversion program’s other terms in New York, the district attorney’s office said.)A stand-up comic before joining the “Saturday Night Live” cast in fall 2014, Mr. Davidson left the NBC show after the season finale last year. His most recent project is the streaming series “Bupkis.”Doing his community service in New York could allow Mr. Davidson to check up on another project tied to his Staten Island roots: a decommissioned ferry that he and Colin Jost, a fellow “Saturday Night Live” cast member — and fellow Staten Islander — bought last year with other investors for $280,000.One vision for the aging vessel involved turning it into what one of the investors called an “arts and entertainment venue.” But Mr. Davidson sounded uncertain about the ferry’s future in an interview with “Entertainment Tonight” last month.“I have no idea what’s going on with that thing,” he said. “Me and Colin were very stoned a year ago and bought a ferry. And we’re figuring it out.” More

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      ‘Meet Cute’ Review: Live. Date. Repeat.

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      This time-loop rom-com takes another swing at the tried-and-true “Groundhog Day” premise.“Meet Cute,” from the director Alex Lehmann, is a “Groundhog Day” movie. Dozens of movies have borrowed the premise of the 1993 comedy in which Bill Murray finds himself caught in a 24-hour time loop, forced to continuously relive the same day: it’s been applied to sci-fi (“Source Code”), farce (“Naked”), horror (“Happy Death Day”), and blockbuster action (“Edge of Tomorrow”), often to amusing effect. “Meet Cute,” like the 2020 film “Palm Springs,” brings the concept to bear on the rom-com: Sheila (Kaley Cuoco) is stuck on a time-looped first date with Gary (Pete Davidson), repeatedly meeting and re-meeting the guy she’s convinced is the man of her dreams.Part of the appeal of “Groundhog Day” (and many of its imitators) is that the reason for the time loop is never explained: Murray’s Sisyphean plight rang true without the need for some literal justification. “Meet Cute” complicates its conceit by introducing elaborate plot mechanics involving a tanning-bed time machine, which results in a number of boring expository flashbacks and, later, an extended riff on “The Butterfly Effect.”Of course, these logistical problems would be excusable if the romance at the center of the movie were remotely compelling or if the jokes were actually funny. At one point, the couple dines at a fancy modern restaurant, and there’s an extended gag about the tiny portions. (“Are we supposed to eat this?” Sheila asks, aghast. “Yes,” Gary says. “It’s one of the best restaurants in the city!”) That joke, like the premise of the movie, might have seemed fresh 30 years ago. Are we stuck in a time loop?Meet CuteNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 29 minutes. Watch on Peacock. More

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      ‘Bodies Bodies Bodies’ and Gen Z’s Struggle to Connect IRL

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      What happens when Gen Z loses Wi-Fi? Using horror and humor, the cast and filmmakers of the new slasher film aim for a generational portrait.A lip-locking close-up is the first we see of Sophie (played by Amandla Stenberg) and Bee, her girlfriend of six weeks (Maria Bakalova). Seemingly pulled from the pages of a fairy tale, Sophie confesses her love for Bee as they lie in a green meadow surrounded by nature. Within seconds, that affectionate scene gives way to a shot of the two absorbed in their phones as agitating dings and notifications dry up any remnants of intimacy or passion.These juxtaposed moments in the new satirical slasher “Bodies, Bodies, Bodies” ridicule the inability of its Generation Z characters to establish meaningful connections when a blinding screen forms a glaring barrier: “Sophie is expecting Bee to perform this intense level of vulnerability, even though she perhaps has not earned it,” Stenberg explained in a video call, “and I think that’s something that we expect now of everyone because we all perform vulnerability on the internet.”That’s one of several ways the film — about a group of privileged, internet-hungry 20-somethings stranded at a house party — tries to paint a portrait of the generation born within a few years before and after the millennium. Using humor, horror tropes and a cast of young stars, the film forces its characters to reckon with their nondigital identities and pokes fun at their symbiotic relationship with cellphones, their jargon based in trauma and the despot-like force of the group chat.As the director Halina Reijn said in a video call, “when the Wi-Fi goes out, it’s like they lose oxygen.”Soon after arriving at the isolated mansion, Sophie, Bee and their friends play Bodies, Bodies, Bodies, a party game involving a mysterious killer the players must identify and vote off in each round. But when the power goes out amid a hurricane, real bodies begin to fall. The characters’ behavior turns beastlike, Reijn said, and they forget how to respond to a crisis disconnected from the digital world.From left, Stenberg, Bakalova, Pete Davidson (David) and Rachel Sennott (Alice) in the film. The characters expect an intense level of vulnerability in person “because we all perform vulnerability on the internet,” Stenberg said.Eric Chakeen/A24“We can totally live in the face of death and still speak about things that are so unimportant but are so big to us,” Reijn said, adding, “I find that funny and tragic, of course, at the same time.”Stenberg, the star of “The Hate U Give” and the forthcoming “Star Wars” series “The Acolyte,” served as an executive producer of the film and drew on her own experience with digital life. She said the screenwriter Sarah DeLappe (a playwright known for “The Wolves”) embedded the script with so much wit that the moments of hypocrisy and vapidity became easy to create. “The point is not to say that Gen Z is not intelligent or sophisticated, but rather to provide a commentary for how absurd the circumstances” are, Stenberg said. (DeLappe was not available for comment.)Among those moments, the partygoers, friends since childhood, playfully film TikToks over the Tyga-Curtis Roach anthem “Bored in the House” and rave about social media likes.Gen Zers rely heavily on digital spaces for self-expression, community building and news gathering, Stenberg noted, but also face a sense of cognitive dissonance as they try to stay present in virtual life and reality. Indeed, said Sarah Bishop, a professor of communication studies at Baruch College, “for them to be able to defamiliarize or step back from this massive presence in their life is asking them to do something impossible, right? It’d be like asking them to imagine living without solid food.”Alice, played by Rachel Sennott (“Shiva Baby”), invites her 40-year-old Tinder match, Greg (Lee Pace), to the house party. In Reijn’s view, Greg serves as a bridge for older viewers: He tries to learn the rules of the game but uses sports analogies a dad might use, like “the best defense is a good offense,” and just bewilders the younger crew. For Reijn, who at 46 is a Gen Xer, Greg represented her personal detachment from Gen Z. “This goes, of course, for every generation that grows older, you always, sort of, lose touch,” she said.Sennott with Lee Pace, who plays Greg, a 40-year-old Tinder match.Gwen Capistran/A24Still, Reijn wanted the film to be real and honest but also funny, as each character shared the primal urge to belong when online usage swallows self-awareness.“I think we live in a time where we’re all very narcissistic, because we’re constantly on the camera,” she said. “Right now, we’re constantly aware of how we look and that is, of course, unprecedented, right? Normally, that was just actors, or musicians and now it’s all of us.”Despite the physical danger each character faces, their virtual realities remain central to the plot. As the lifelong friends, drunk and high, try to determine who the killer in the game is, Emma (Chase Sui Wonders) exclaims that her boyfriend, David (Pete Davidson), is gaslighting her. David’s response: The word is meaningless, and all she did was read the internet. Be more original.With the use of trauma-centered jargon like “gaslight,” “trigger,” “toxic” and “narcissist,” overuse can cheapen the language’s original value, Wonders said.“I think Gen Z has a brilliant, brilliant way of latching onto words, giving them so much beautiful meaning and having it spread like wildfire across cultures,” she said, “and then have it swallowed by irony.”Viewers can’t help but laugh at the friends’ misery as they take emotional stabs at each other. Sophie erupts about the double standard between Black and white drug users, but rather than admitting the disparity, Alice responds, “I’m an ally.” Or when Jordan (Myha’la Herrold) questions Sophie about ghosting the group chat, she responds, “You trigger me.” Herrold, who declared this her favorite scene, said the cast spent late hours editing and rewriting the sequence to make sure it remained relatable.“A lot of the Gen Z language, ‘gaslight’ and all that, some of that was cut and we were like, ‘No it has to stay in here,’” Herrold said.Bakalova, Mhya’la Herrold (Jordan) and Stenberg. Herrold said the cast made sure that Gen Z jargon wasn’t cut from the film. A24“Bodies Bodies Bodies” is one of a number of films from A24 to try to capture a generation — think “Spring Breakers” and “Lady Bird” before it — this time to the tune of Charli XCX’s “Hot Girl,” epitomizing the egotism of post, reply and repeat.This includes group chats. Comparable to cliques at a high school lunch table, the chat dictates who is in and out of the friend group. These chats hold political meanings, Stenberg said, and when Sophie strolls into the party without properly notifying the chat first, the house grows hostile.“I’ve been in friend groups before where it’s a big deal if someone is removed from the group chat or someone is added,” she said, “and it’s this horrendous, toxic thing where someone’s presence can be physically determined.”From digital media addictions to gripping group chats, Stenberg said, “Bodies Bodies Bodies” doesn’t aim to classify social media as the villain but the mirror within us all.“We have to think carefully and intentionally about how those tools can bring out and amplify the parts of us that are the scariest,” she said. More

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      In Comedy, Timing Is Everything, Especially at Netflix’s Festival

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      Planned long before the streamer hit a rough patch, the expansive event had the feel of the end of an era. Still, there were plenty of stellar shows.LOS ANGELES — Over the past two weeks, in a shock-and-awe display of cultural power that suddenly seems from a bygone era, Netflix put on a behemoth festival that summoned all corners of the comedy world. Take Saturday evening, for instance. Amy Poehler and Tina Fey cracked jokes at the YouTube Theater while Billy Eichner hosted an evening of LGBTQ+ stand-ups at the Greek Theater that included, among others, Wanda Sykes and Tig Notaro. Tim Heidecker chatted with comics at the Elysian Theater, a savvy new alternative space, while Mitra Jouhari from Adult Swim’s “Three Busy Debras” prepared to go onstage. Two miles away, Gabriel Iglesias was getting ready to be the first stand-up to ever perform at Dodger Stadium.The inaugural Netflix Is a Joke Fest which was cooked up before the pandemic and then postponed, rivaled if not eclipsed Just for Laughs, the mammoth industry event in Montreal. Producing 298 shows in dozens of spaces throughout Los Angeles, this ambitious effort took place in an awkwardly humbling moment for the streaming giant, after a quarter when it reported losing subscribers for the first time in a decade and its valuation dropped more than a third. There were layoffs, talk of price increases and the once unthinkable, adding digital ads.The physical kind blanketed the city, including a seven-story sign overlooking Hollywood Boulevard that commanded: “Please Laugh Responsibly.” This is the sort of corporate humor that uses jokey irony to disguise a commercial purpose, but there was something especially incongruous about the swagger of these promotions. To trumpet, in another sign, “the biggest comedy event in history” (with an asterisk and the joke “probably”) while employees anxiously whispered about the company’s future gave the festival a certain “last days of the Roman Empire” vibe.Ads for the festival blanketed Los Angeles. Allison Zaucha for The New York TimesMy week at the festival, seeing two shows a night, was a reminder that comics thrive in such environments. “Anyone hear an earthquake or a tremor?” David Letterman quipped at his live talk show, held at the festival with only stand-ups as guests. (They performed short sets and also sat down to chat.) With his old pinpoint timing, he waited a beat before quipping: “Must have been the Netflix stock crashing.”Anthony Jeselnik told the crowd at his show he loved that Netflix started the festivities by “laying off half their marketing team, losing a billion dollars and then trying to kill Dave Chappelle” — a reference to an audience member’s attack on Chappelle earlier in the festival. Known for taut jokes, Jeselnik leaned more into storytelling while sticking to his commitment to navigating hot button subjects in sharp-edged punch lines, starting with material on the trans community that aims to be both transgressive and progressive. The rap against Jeselnik is that his use of misdirection can be formulaic, like a math problem, but this show was advanced calculus, an implicit rebuke to comedians relying on lazy jokes about marginalized groups. He said he had writer’s block over the pandemic so he set himself goals to escape it. “I wanted to not aim too high,” he said at a leisurely pace: “Set something easy: try to handle this better than John Mulaney.”Those expecting Mulaney, who performed at the Forum, to dig deep into the relationship drama that has made him a tabloid staple would be disappointed. He is touring with an hour of material that is the most anticipated of the year, and it lives up to the hype. (No news on when it will become a special.) When I first saw him do the same material at City Winery one year ago, his discussion of addiction and rehab was raw and messy and bleak. It has tightened into a polished showbiz machine, with his broadest act-outs, impressions and even an extended song and dance. (The suggestion of a suicidal tendency is gone.) His show is less a baring of the soul than a joke-dense and pointed scuffing up of his image. Its key line: “Likability is a jail.”If so, Meg Stalter might be its current warden, since her videos during the pandemic turned her into an unlikely star with a devoted community of fans who delighted in her collection of flamboyantly overwrought characters. How this success will translate to her live comedy is an open question. In a hectic, digressive performance to a sold-out audience, she left her characters behind and stuck to one self-dramatizing, often flailing star whose biggest laughs were less the product of bits than interactions with the crowd.While there were several star-driven shows, the festival was anchored by many showcases of short sets, often hosted by big names like Lily Tomlin and Jane Fonda. They introduced a stellar lineup of mostly women comics, including Cristela Alonzo and Michelle Buteau (who both told quarantine jokes). In between acts, Fonda and Tomlin bantered, comparing notes on who had been arrested more. When Margaret Cho came onstage, a few days after the leak of the Supreme Court abortion opinion, she told the hosts, “I look forward to getting arrested with you after the repeal of Roe v. Wade.”Lily Tomlin and Jane Fonda were hosts of one show featuring mainly women comics.Elizabeth Morris/Netflix The biggest show by far was Iglesias’s at Dodger Stadium, a stand-up set that seemed to double as a celebration of its own feat, even though seeing comedy in a ballpark is not ideal. When Martin Moreno asked the crowd to not look at screens before introducing him, most of the audience, myself included, was watching him on a giant screen.But many of the funniest, most satisfying performances took place in small rooms, none more so than the one by Liza Treyger, whose act has become a Richard-Lewis-level opera of neurotic self-deprecation. What she called her “monologue of bad habits” is a rapid-fire series of beyond-jaded jokes at her own expense that often take the form of exasperated questions: “Do you ever watch a video on Instagram and tell your friends you watched a documentary?” she said. “Do you run late on purpose just to feel something?”For comedy nerds, it was also a pleasure to see Marsha Warfield, a former star of the sitcom “Night Court” and a figure from the 1970s Comedy Store scene whose legendary reputation rarely translates into high-profile shows. In a confidently moseying delivery, she talked about falling out of the public eye and coming out of the closet on Facebook, then defensively insisted that’s just where old people are. “Facebook is the 21st-century version of sitting in an open window and yelling at people,” she said.Of course such intimate live shows are not what created the most news. That would be Pete Davidson returning to stand-up (“In the last couple years, I’ve been onstage less than the babies inside of Ali Wong,” he said, a solid inside baseball quip) and cracking jokes about Kanye West. There was also the attack on Chappelle which added an element of tension to the entire festival. Beefy security guys were quick to clamp down on hecklers. I saw two people wrestled to the ground and dragged out of a theater before a Snoop Dogg-hosted show; another person was forcibly ejected after heckling Letterman. Many comics seemed jittery and ready to battle. When Mike Epps, dressed in a black leather suit, walked onstage shadow boxing, everyone got the joke. This was funny, but that this celebration of jokes sat alongside the new alertness to security added yet another irony to this festival.Pete Davidson made headlines for his return to stand-up (and for jokes about Kanye West).Ser Baffo/Netflix Comics were sympathetic to Chappelle, but the backlash toward his jokes about the trans community started make its way into sets. After saying that people have been asking her about the assault, Robin Tran, a trans comic who was headlining a show, quipped: “I just want to say, for the record, I only told him to scare Chappelle.” At a different show, another trans comic, Nori Reed, did a very funny, experimental set that postponed telling a conventional punchline for a few minutes, then calling it inspired by Chappelle: “No jokes, all vibes.”One of the strengths and perhaps vulnerabilities of Netflix, the festival and service, is its range. The streamer’s comedy taste has always been difficult to pin down. Its brand is big. I interviewed the heads of Netflix comedy in 2018, around the height of their power, though competition from rival services like Apple TV+ and Disney+ loomed. Asked if they could continue to draw the most famous names with big money, Lisa Nishimura, the vice president of independent and documentary film content, said: “If we continue to grow the audience, we’re OK.”Now that the audience has shrunk, what does that mean? Will the number of Netflix comedy specials dwindle? Will competitors fill the space? HBO has been putting out quality shows and found a discourse-dominating hit with Jerrod Carmichael’s “Rothaniel.” (That special was directed by Bo Burnham, whose “Inside” is one of the most impressive success stories for Netflix of the past few years.)In a Sunset Boulevard coffee shop, just a few blocks from the hotel where club owners and comics stayed and you could see unnerving sights like late-night Comedy Cellar staple Dave Attell bathed in Hollywood daylight, I met with Robbie Praw, the director of original standup at Netflix. He looked weary managing this behemoth. Asked if financial troubles will change Netflix’s commitment to comedy, he said no but conceded that when it came to the number of specials, there would be “a little more curation.”It was a cautious, careful answer, one that reflected the moment more than any joke, billboard or festival did that week. More

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      Pete Davidson to Join Next Blue Origin Space Flight

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      The “Saturday Night Live” comedian will be one of six passengers to fly to the edge of space this month with Blue Origin, the rocket company founded by Jeff Bezos.The “Saturday Night Live” actor Pete Davidson will travel to the edge of space next week on the next Blue Origin spaceflight, the company said on Monday.Blue Origin, the rocket company founded by Jeff Bezos, said on Monday that it would launch its fourth flight with human passengers on March 23. Mr. Davidson will be one of six passengers on the company’s New Shepard rocket for its 20th flight.Mr. Bezos, the founder of Amazon and one of the richest people in the world, was a passenger on the company’s first flight with humans on board last July. Earlier that month, another private spaceflight company, Virgin Galactic, took its founder, Richard Branson, to the edge of space and back.Mr. Davidson, 28, joined the cast of “Saturday Night Live” in 2014. He has also appeared in movies, including the 2020 semi-autobiographical film “The King of Staten Island.” He could not immediately be reached for comment on Monday.A Blue Origin spokeswoman said Monday that Mr. Davidson would fly as “an honorary guest,” while the other five passengers were paying customers. The spokeswoman did not say how much the others had been charged to join the flight.Mr. Davidson will be the latest celebrity passenger to travel to the edge of space with Blue Origin.In October, the “Star Trek” actor William Shatner, 90, became the oldest person to travel to space and cross the Kármán line, the widely recognized boundary between Earth’s atmosphere and space that is about 62 miles above the planet’s surface. Mr. Shatner shared the New Shepard rocket with three other passengers on a mission that lasted about 10 minutes.In December, Michael Strahan, the “Good Morning America” co-host, joined a Blue Origin flight with five others.The flight carrying Mr. Davidson is scheduled to lift off from Blue Origin’s launch site in West Texas at 8:30 a.m. local time on March 23.In addition to Mr. Davidson, Blue Origin said on Monday, the flight will have five other passengers: Marty Allen, Sharon and Marc Hagle, Jim Kitchen and George Nield.Mr. Allen is a former chief executive of Party America, the party-supply store. Mr. Hagle is the president and chief executive of Tricor International, a residential and commercial property development company. Ms. Hagle founded the nonprofit group SpaceKids Global. Mr. Kitchen is a professor of the practice of strategy and entrepreneurship at the Kenan-Flagler Business School at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.Dr. Nield is the president of Commercial Space Technologies. From 2008 to 2018, he was associate administrator for commercial space transportation at the Federal Aviation Administration, the agency that regulates commercial launches like Blue Origin’s.Kenneth Chang More

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      On ‘S.N.L.,’ Donald Trump Tries His Hand at Wordle

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      Colin Jost and Pete Davidson provided an update on their purchase of a retired Staten Island Ferry boat, in this episode hosted by Will Forte.It’s the viral phenomenon that gets picked apart on social media, where you throw out random words and see what gets a response — but first, the “Saturday Night Live” opening sketch.This weekend’s broadcast, hosted by the “S.N.L.” alumnus Will Forte and featuring the musical guest Måneskin, began with a parody of the Fox News program “The Ingraham Angle,” with Kate McKinnon as its host, Laura Ingraham.She lamented the first year of the Biden administration, which she said had been a disaster, citing rising inflation, high gas prices and the green M&M’s getting canceled. She added that the nation “is still mourning from the sudden loss of America’s dad, Robert Durst.”McKinnon introduced her first guest, Senator Ted Cruz, played by Aidy Bryant. Bryant explained that her beard was “like Jan. 6: shocking at first, but sadly it’s been normalized.”Bryant’s Cruz went on to deliver a warning to her constituents in Texas: “February’s going to be a cold one, so you might want to book your vacay to Cancún now,” she said. “Live más, everybody.”After offering shout-outs to her remaining sponsors (including Covid Negs, “the Covid test that’s guaranteed to be negative, even if you have it”), McKinnon brought out Pete Davidson as Novak Djokovic, the unvaccinated tennis star who was recently deported from Australia.“People love to tear you off your pedestal, just because you’re really rich or you’re the best at tennis or you go to a charity event with 200 kids even though you’re dripping with Covid,” Davidson said.Ego Nwodim appeared as the conservative commentator Candace Owens (“It’s my greatest honor to continue to fight for African Americans,” she said, “no matter how many times they ask me to stop”), followed by James Austin Johnson in his recurring role as former president Donald J. Trump.“I’m back just like ‘Tiger King 2,’” Johnson said. “You had fun the first time, but now you’re like, how are more people from this not in jail yet?”This time, his Trump-style free associations were accompanied by a round of Wordle, the popular online word game (as well as a boast that he would beat Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida if he opposed him for the presidential nomination). After rambling about the booster shot, John Mayer, Hilary Duff and Jason Momoa, Johnson landed at the correct Wordle answer which turned out to be — what else? — Trump.Opening monologue of the weekForte, who was a “Saturday Night Live” cast member from 2002 to 2010, made his first appearance as a host this weekend. And to hear him tell it, he was not at all bitter that he finally got to do it after hosting duties had previously been handled by his fellow alums Kristen Wiig, Bill Hader, Andy Samberg and Fred Armisen. (Then Wiig again, then Hader again, as well as Jason Sudeikis, Seth Meyers and John Mulaney four times.)But Forte didn’t exactly welcome an onstage appearance from Wiig. (“I flew in for this,” she explained as he shooed her away. “Oh, great, so you know where the airport is,” he replied.) Nor was he pleased to see next week’s host, Willem Dafoe, in the house when the “S.N.L.” boss Lorne Michaels claimed that Forte’s booking had been a mistake: “I texted Willem and, you know, autocorrect,” Michaels said.MacGruber of the weekC’mon, you didn’t think you would get a Forte-hosted episode without a return appearance (or three) from MacGruber, the hapless MacGyver wannabe he originated on “S.N.L.”?It’s been more than a decade since Forte last played MacGruber in an “S.N.L.” sketch (though the character went on to have his own movie and a streaming TV series). But rest assured that MacGruber is still an overconfident blowhard who finds himself trapped in rooms with ticking time bombs that spell his imminent demise.Oh, and now he’s an unrepentant conspiracy theorist and anti-vaxxer. Did we mention he was joined by Wiig and Ryan Phillippe, and he also believes in QAnon?Weekend Update jokes of the weekOver at the Weekend Update desk, the anchors Colin Jost and Michael Che continued to riff on President Biden’s recent news conference and the Senate’s defeat of a voting-rights bill.Jost began:President Biden marked the end of his first year in office with a two-hour press conference. Because that’s how long it took to list everything that’s gone wrong. It was actually the longest presidential press conference in history. But as I’ve been told many times before, just because you went for a long time doesn’t mean you did a good job.Che continued:Senate Republicans lined up to shake Kyrsten Sinema’s hand after she voted against changing the filibuster to pass voting rights. Ah, the U.S. Senate. Keeping Black folks down with a quiet handshake since 1787. Senator Bernie Sanders suggested that he supports replacing fellow Democrats Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema. Damn, Bernie, stab your own co-workers in the back? That’s unforgivable. I would never suggest Colin should be fired, no matter how much better I think Bowen would be. [The screen shows an image of Che anchoring Weekend Update with his “S.N.L.” co-star Bowen Yang]Most important news development of the weekWhat started as a not-so-innocent visit to the Weekend Update desk by Alex Moffat as his recurring character Guy Who Just Bought a Boat turned into a timely opportunity to roast Jost about this week’s news that he and Davidson were among the investors who won an auction for a decommissioned Staten Island Ferry boat.Joining Jost and Moffat at the desk, Davidson declared in a deeply chagrined tone, “We bought a ferry — the windowless van of the sea.”Jost replied: “Yes, it’s very exciting. We thought the whole thing through.”To which Davidson added, in disbelief: “Even the mayor tweeted about it. Which is how I found out we have a new mayor? What happened to Bloomberg?” More

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      What to Watch on New Year's Eve: Movies, TV Shows, Live Events

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      In case the Omicron spike has scrapped your plans, these binge watches, live broadcasts and double features will bring the party to you.With the annual New Year’s Eve celebration in Times Square scaled back due to the spread of Omicron, and other big party plans in doubt, an at-home celebration with friends and a remote might be a more popular way to ring in 2022 than we had all imagined.Live television will be flush with celebrity-driven countdowns. The biggie is “Dick Clark’s Primetime New Year’s Rockin’ Eve With Ryan Seacrest 2022” broadcast from Times Square on ABC, the special’s 50th anniversary. Performers include Journey in Times Square, Billy Porter in New Orleans and Big Boi in Los Angeles, among others. New this year is the first Spanish-language countdown with Daddy Yankee, which will take place in Puerto Rico.Other live specials include “Miley’s New Year’s Eve Party Hosted by Miley Cyrus and Pete Davidson,” broadcast from Miami starting at 10:30 p.m. on NBC, with performances by Brandi Carlile and Billie Joe Armstrong; and the return of Anderson Cooper and Andy Cohen as the hosts of “CNN’s New Year’s Eve Live,” starting at 8 p.m.If you want to make a day of it, here are some streaming options on the fun, uplifting side — no matter how you define that — to stay entertained until it’s time to say goodbye to 2021.A Good-Time BingeChristina Applegate, left, and Linda Cardellini, in “Dead to Me” on Netflix.Saeed Adyani/Netflix, via Associated PressDon’t be fooled by the downer-sounding name: “Dead to Me,” an Emmy-nominated Netflix comedy, now in its second season, will make you laugh even as tears streak your face.It helps if your tastes run toward the darker side of funny, since the show is about Jen (Christina Applegate), a hotheaded mom, and Judy (Linda Cardellini), a free-spirited artist, who meet at a grief support group and strike up an oddball but deep friendship that’s threatened by a devastating secret Judy harbors. Applegate is especially good as she navigates pitch-black humor and heartbreaking sorrow.You won’t get through all 20 half-hour episodes in a day, but chances are good you’ll be hooked to keep watching in 2022, when a third season is expected.Be a DragIf “RuPaul’s Drag Race” is getting tired to you, two other drag queen competition shows will quench your thirst for elegance, sass and wigs to here.Lip-syncing, the dollar-generating go-to of drag queens everywhere, is off the menu on the Paramount+ show “Queen of the Universe.” Here, queens from around the world battle by actually singing for the judges, who include Vanessa Williams and the “Drag Race” winner Trixie Mattel.For a more wicked competition, Shudder offers “The Boulet Brothers’ Dragula,” a horror-themed drag competition. The looks are as glamorous as they are macabre, and with names like “Exorsisters” and “Nosferatu Beach Party,” the competitions are fiendishly camp.Count DownFor the past few years, my partner and I have enjoyed a New Year’s Eve tradition that makes us feel like dinosaurs: We compile a YouTube playlist of music videos for the year’s Top 20 songs, according to Billboard’s Hot 100 list, and watch with cocktails in hand. Every year I’ve maybe heard of one or two songs; my personal soundtrack hasn’t left ’80s New Wave.This year, I’ve seen Lil Nas X’s video for “Montero (Call Me By Your Name)” — it’s hard to miss — but I’m looking forward to watching Dua Lipa’s “Levitating,” the top song.Double FeaturesJean-Michel Basquiat in “Downtown 81,” streaming on Criterion Collection.Zeitgeist FilmsFour highlights from the Criterion Channel’s “New York Stories,” a collection of 40 films set in the five boroughs, would make for a terrific night of thematic watching.Start with a pair of films about roaming New York. “Little Fugitive” (1953) is a scrappy fable about a boy who leaves home to spend the day exploring Coney Island. “Downtown 81,” shot in the early ’80s but released in 2000, stars Jean-Michel Basquiat as an artist wandering the streets of Lower Manhattan, where he meets some legends of early ’80s New York. Yes, that’s Debbie Harry as a fairy princess.Or try two films that ponder what it means to be young and in search of yourself. In “Brother to Brother” (2004), Anthony Mackie’s character develops a friendship with a fellow Black gay artist whose life was shaped by the Harlem Renaissance. In Noah Baumbach’s dry comedy “Frances Ha” (2013), Greta Gerwig plays a young dancer struggling with ambition, friendship and elusive happiness, Manhattan-style.A Family Watch“Lego Masters” is a family-friendly reality TV competition, streaming on Hulu, in which teams of two are asked to create artistically fantastic and architecturally demanding Lego structures.Kids will get a kick out of how Lego are transformed into wearable hats, cuddly animals and smash-em-up vehicles. Adults, especially those who grew up as Lego builders, will appreciate the engineering skill required for structures to withstand heavy winds and even tremors. Expect heart-pounding, creative fun no matter the episode, especially with the charming goofball Will Arnett as host.Be NostalgicHead to IMDb TV to watch “All in the Family,” the CBS sitcom that ran from 1971 to ’79. When Archie, Edith and their Queens neighbors argue over race, feminism and politics, the rancor sounds ripped from today’s headlines. Season 2 has several very funny episodes, including “Sammy’s Visit,” in which Sammy Davis Jr. memorably gives Archie a smooch.For a darker day of retro television, tune into Decades for a three-day “Twilight Zone” marathon starting on New Year’s Eve. Friday’s schedule features two of the series’s best episodes: “The After Hours,” about a woman wandering through an eerie department store, and “The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street,” about a neighborhood that turns paranoid amid a possible alien invasion.Laugh and ScreamAlan Tudyk, left, and Tyler Labine in “Tucker & Dale vs. Evil.”Magnet ReleasingAs a horror movie fan, I spent a lot of time during the pandemic catching up on scary comedies, a genre that’s hard to get right. When a movie strikes the right balance of funny and frightful, it’s worth a watch — especially for the horror-averse.Several great horror comedies are available for free on Tubi. Two of my favorites are “Saturday the 14th” (1981), a cheese-ball spoof of old-school monster movies that’s good for older kids (rated PG) and the easily-distracted (a speedy 76 minutes); and “Tucker & Dale vs. Evil” (2011), a slapstick splatter comedy about two yokels, a group of meddlesome college kids and a very bloody-funny misunderstanding. More

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      Paul Rudd Hosts a Year-End ‘S.N.L.’ Disrupted by the Omicron Variant

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      “Saturday Night Live” sought to persevere with an episode featuring special guests, but no musical performer and only two regular cast members.In a week when the rapid spread of the Omicron variant of the coronavirus had disrupted Broadway shows, concerts, sports and numerous other entertainment events, “Saturday Night Live” inevitably found it challenging to broadcast live from New York.Hours before a year-end holiday “S.N.L.” episode that was to be hosted by Paul Rudd and feature the musical guest Charli XCX, NBC suddenly announced several changes to this sketch variety show’s familiar format: citing “an abundance of caution,” the network said on Saturday afternoon that “S.N.L.” was pulling its live audience and would have “limited cast and crew.” A short while later, Charli XCX said that she would be unable to perform on the program at all.Even so, “S.N.L.” tried to persevere, as it has throughout the pandemic. The onset of the coronavirus had forced the cancellation of several live broadcasts in its 2019-20 season, which the show finished out with episodes consisting of sketches its cast members recorded from their home quarantines. Since the beginning of the 2020-21 season, in October 2020, “S.N.L.” has aired a full run of live shows from its Manhattan home in Studio 8H in 30 Rockefeller Plaza with many new protocols in place but little apparent interruption.But this week’s episode, which offered a mix of new segments filmed earlier in the week and vintage sketches from past years, was bound to come across differently. As Rudd told viewers at the end of the night, “I know it wasn’t the Christmas show that you expected but that’s the beauty of this place. Like life, it’s unpredictable.”However, the first performer to cross the show’s threshold tonight was a surprise guest: The opening sketch, which took place on the Studio 8H stage with no set, began with Tom Hanks, who was wearing his smoking jacket from the Five-Timers Club.Hanks offered his gratitude to the program’s “surviving crew members,” adding that it was his intention to induct a new member into the club tonight “but Covid came early this year,” he said.Though many “S.N.L.” cast members would be absent, Hanks said, “I came here from California, and if you think I was going to fly 3,000 miles and not be on TV, you’ve got another thing coming.”He was joined by Tina Fey, an “S.N.L.” alumna, who explained that this was not the smallest audience she had ever performed for, “because I have done improv in a Macy’s,” she said.When Rudd entered, he glanced into the studio audience and said brightly, “I’m extremely disappointed.” He was nonetheless inducted into the Five-Timers Club by Kenan Thompson, one of only two current cast members to be seen onstage tonight. (The other was Michael Che.)Rudd then explained to viewers that the rest of the show would feel “a little bit like that new Beatles documentary: a lot of old footage but enough new stuff that you’re like, OK, yeah, I’ll watch that.”Commercial Parody of the WeekIt may be long and shaggy and constructed of variations on, basically, just one joke. But after the week that just transpired, how can you not be charmed by Aidy Bryant and Kate McKinnon as two senior moms (and frequent customers at HomeGoods) whose participation in a TV commercial boils down to telling its director (Rudd), over and over, the truth about what they really want for Christmas? (It’s grandchildren, by the way. They want grandchildren.)Unexpected Scorsese Homage of the WeekMany of Pete Davidson’s sketches now are about the fact that Pete Davidson is Pete Davidson, and still this latest one proved to be a worthy entry in that surprisingly abundant genre.Beginning with a sendup of the bookend segments from “Raging Bull,” this mostly black-and-white film imagines an aging Davidson in the year 2054, with a gut and a receding hairline, now the star of a meager nightclub act in which he tries to recapture his past “S.N.L.” glories. (At least things appear to have turned out better for him than they did for his pal Machine Gun Kelly.)Weekend Update Jokes of the WeekIn what had to be the loosest, most low-fidelity production of Weekend Update since the Chevy Chase era, the news-satire segment this week featured Che and Fey sitting on the stage in directors’ chairs as they read jokes to Rudd, Hanks and Thompson. (Fey explained that, though she was filling in for the regular co-anchor Colin Jost, “It’s not what you think — he’s having work done.)Among the highlights from their routine:Che: “Well, it’s Christmas, so let’s start with some good news, Tina. O.J. Simpson has been released from parole two months early because of good behavior. Said O.J., ‘I can’t believe I got out of parole early but I did it. I did it.’”Fey: “Time magazine has named Elon Musk ‘Person of the Year.’ You can read more about it on your phone while your Tesla is self-driving you into a lake.”Che: “It was revealed that on January 6, three Fox News hosts all texted Mark Meadows to urge him to get Trump to call off his supporters. And you know you’ve gone too far when Fox News is like, somebody better calm these white people down.”Vintage Sketch of the WeekSeveral of the classic sketches resurfaced tonight were tried-and-true “S.N.L.” Yuletide gems, like “D*** in a Box” and “Christmastime for the Jews.” But then there was this curveball: a 1990 segment called “The Global Warming Christmas Special,” which if nothing else proves that, like climate change, the show’s predilection for bits in which its cast members play random celebrities is not a recent phenomenon.Watch for impersonations of Carl Sagan, Dean Martin, Sally Struthers, George Hamilton and many more. And see if you can keep it together when the late, beloved “S.N.L.” stars Phil Hartman and Jan Hooks walk onstage to perform a duet, as Isaac Asimov and Crystal Gayle. More