Last week's edition of Saturday Night Live continued a so-far dream 34th season, ratings-wise, as its third episode chalked up a 46 percent increase in viewership in the same episode of last season.  According to numbers released by Nielsen Media Research, the Saturday Night Live episode that featured host Ana Faris topped all primetime telecasts on all networks during its timeslot.

Saturday Night Live continued to take advantage of the public's interest on the upcoming elections, opening its episode with a spoof of Katie Couric's interview of the GOP vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin by returning cast Tina Fey, fresh from winning another Emmy for 30 Rock.   According to a press release from NBC, these were all “designed to take advantage of intense interest in the 2008 election campaign.”

The skit was a big hit, featuring Amy Poehler as Couric, who looked permanently dazed, complete with her readiness to go away.  It primarily poked fun of the Alaskan governor's seeming lack of knowledge regarding the most pressing issues today, such as the looming $700-billion bail-out and foreign policy (once again giving much attention to the “I can see Russia from my house” bit from the premiere.)

“Every morning when the Alaskans wake up,” Fey begins, “one of the first things they do is look outside to see if there are any Russians hanging around, if there are you have to go up to them and ask what are you doing here and if they can't give you a good reason, then you have the responsibility to say shoo, get back over there.”

Fey impersonating Palin also continuously rambled on several things (job creation, spending, health care, tax cuts) when asked about the bail-out, then trailing off in mid-sentence.  Meanwhile, when asked for specific steps to spread democracy abroad, she said “Katie, I'd like to use one of my lifelines... I want to phone a friend.” Advised that there were no lifelines available to her, Fey said 'I'll try to find you some and I'll bring in to you,” reminiscent of how the real interview went.


-Glenn L. Diaz, BuddyTV Staff Columnist
Source: NBC
(Image Courtesy of NBC)