(S35E16) This was definitely one of the weirder installments of 'Saturday Night Live' in a while, but for fans of Zach Galifianakis, it was a real treat. It's very rare that the entire tone of the evening so perfectly fits the host. A lot of hosts, be they athletes or singers or professional actors, use 'SNL' as a platform for showcasing other talents that they have (or think they have) and that can often lead to strange, near unwatchable territory.

Galifianakis knows where's his strong points are and confidently played those up all through the episode. He is not at his best with cue card-heavy parts, but rather when he forces the audience to bask in his glorious, beardy, unsettling presence. So we got a lot of that. A lot. Response to this episode will probably be highly divided (well, more so than other weeks) but, speaking as a long-time fan of Galifianakis, it worked.

This one just struck me as a bit odd. HBO has signed long time NY Times columnist Frank Rich on as a creative consultant. The two are tight-lipped about what projects he may or may not be working on already, but his new position is described as contributing to original program development. Apparently there will also be the opportunity for Rich to become a producer of projects that he helps with.

He's going to keep his gig at the Times while working with HBO, although he will avoid writing about the network, or their corporate overlords (and ours), Time Warner. Hiring creative consultants isn't the usual modus operandi for HBO, and programming group president Richard Plepler added that "it is not something the network is looking to do on a regular basis." Odd as it sounds on the surface, Rich did spend 13 years as the Times' chief theater critic, so he has some background for the gig. And anything that gets us closer to Jay Black, creative consultant to The CW, has to be a good thing, right?