bill hader

Someday Melissa McCarthy will be a good 'SNL' host. Her name will be mentioned alongside recent 'SNL' hosting phenoms like Jon Hamm and Justin Timberlake. Hell, if given some better than average material last night to back up her deliveries, we may already be mentioning her name as part of this class. Unfortunately, McCarthy did what she could with a writing staff that seemed to take the week off from writing anything interesting and, instead, just gave her a few sketches that resembled poor man's clones of 'Bridesmaids.' To be fair, this was probably to be expected with her first outing immediately following her breakthrough comedy role. But, now that this is out of the way, hopefully, next time, the writing staff will giver her more things to do than pour food on her head and have her fall down a flight of stairs. Alas, on to the scorecard...

The first week of 'Saturday Night Live' is in the books, which means it's once again time to go to the Relevancy Poll to see who's getting the most out of their airtime. (The final results of last year's poll are over here.) Host Alec Baldwin dominated the smaller sketches, and with a plethora of ensemble sketches (three in all), at least so far, it's hard to get a true gage on how things will play out in the cast. Though we did get a sense that Kristen Wiig seems to be back in full force -- after what could be considered a year off to finish and promote 'Bridesmaids'-- and that Jay Pharoah is still in the doghouse. Off to the poll:

Watching Alec Baldwin host 'SNL' – which he has now done a record 16 times -- has become a little like purchasing a recent album from the now disbanded R.E.M.: We know that we're going to get a solid effort – even great, at times -- but the truly memorable moments are from the first decade of work. A point Baldwin even kind of alludes to in last night's monologue. The first show of the season is usually a mixed bag at best (with last year's excellent Amy Poehler hosted effort a huge exception). "But they've had all summer to think of new ideas," is often a criticism levied at the first show of a season, but that's not really the way it works. With Baldwin as host and with the exact same cast as last year (with the only change being Nasim Pedrad promoted from featured player to cast member) there was hope that SNL's 37^th season could come out firing on all cylinders. Nope. So, with that, welcome to another season of 'Saturday Night Live' and, yes, another season of SNL Scorecard!

Alec Baldwin was supposed to play the part eventually portrayed by Leonard Nimoy in last Sunday's Emmy Awards opening skit, but the actor dropped out when Fox decided to censor his joke about Rupert Murdoch and News Corp's wiretapping scandal.

Thankfully, Bill Hader asked Baldwin about the zinger in the promos for this week's Season 37 opener of 'Saturday Night Live,' and you can hear it below ... sort of.

You should know that Baldwin is so ready for his record-making 16th hosting gig that he arrived prepared with a brand-new Trapper Keeper. Eeee!

Watch the promos below, and don't forget to come back Sunday for Mike Ryan's scorecard of the 'SNL' Season 37 premiere.

There's an ongoing debate as to whether it's awesome or annoying when cast members crack up on 'Saturday Night Live' (Sat., 11:30PM ET on NBC). For instance, a lot of people hated former cast member Jimmy Fallon, simply because he laughed during sketches. Personally, we tend to err on the "awesome" side of the equation, but that's just us.

Now, the new king of inappropriate live giggling is ... Bill Hader, who's been having a lot trouble when playing his gay-themed character "Stefon" on "Weekend Update." "Stefon" is actually based on a dude who Bill has personally met. But the normally laid-back and professional Mr. Hader has some issues with playing him -- he's cracked up and broken character in the past.

Anyway, watch for yourself, as Bill/"Stefon" tries to talk about hipster-ish Christmas parties, "human parking cones" and "jacked midgets" -- but then is unable to restrain himself. Hader starts laughing, then starts freaking out again ... and has to cover his face with his hands.

This week's 'Saturday Night Live' (Saturday, 11:30 PM ET on NBC) cold-opened with a spoof of the 'Rachel Maddow Show,' in which Nancy Pelosi, played by Kristen Wiig, John Boehner, played by Bill Hader, and Charlie Rangel, played by Kenan Thompson, were guests.

It wasn't one of SNL stronger political skits, as most of the humor veered toward the cheap and obvious:

"Hello, young man," was how Rangel greeted Maddow. "Orange you glad I didn't mention the color of your face?" Maddow asked Boehner.

Meeting the grandparents is always difficult. Especially when you're engaged to the future King of England. And especially when the grandparents you're meeting are Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh. And especially when you're just a mere "commoner" yourself.

On the new 'SNL' (Sat., 11:30PM ET on NBC), the show takes on the engagement of British heir-to-the-throne Prince William. After eight years of dating, William finally got engaged to "regular girl" Kate Middleton, his girlfriend.

The long delay between dating and making wedding plans earned Kate the cruel nickname of "Waity Katie" from the English press. But that's nothing compared to the cruel reception that Middleton (played by Anne Hathaway) gets from the royal family on 'Saturday Night Live.'

To mark the 25th anniversary of the classic 1980s film 'Back to the Future,' new footage was released. These outtakes showed the original casting of Eric Stotlz as "Marty McFly."

Though we all know and love Michael J. Fox as the time-traveling teenager, he wasn't the first person cast in the film. But some things just feel right. And so, Eric was eventually replaced with Michael -- even though changing actors added about $3 million to the budget.

Hmm ... So according to 'Back to the Future,' you can remake the past or the present -- and casting choices can be remade as well. But once you start questioning your original decisions, there's no telling how far you can go. And on the new 'SNL' (Sat., 11:30PM ET on NBC), the cast members decided to see just how far they could go with it.

'Saturday Night Live' begins its 36th season this week (Sept. 25, 11:30PM ET, NBC), and one of the highlights of the venerable sketch comedy series for the last five seasons has been the hilarious Bill Hader, whose dead-on impressions of Vincent Price and Al Pacino, plus original characters like chain-smoking Italian talk show host Vinny Vedicci and excited 'Weekend Update' City Correspondent Stefon, have made him a fan favorite.

Comedian Bill Hader has been on 'Saturday Night Live' (Sat., 11:30PM ET on NBC) for many years now. He's also starred in such movies as 'Superbad' and 'Forgetting Sarah Marshall.' But even for an experienced comedian, performing on live TV can be tough. And unexpected problems occurred on the latest episode of 'SNL' when Hader started struggling with his lines.

Watch the video after the jump.

(S35E20) Like most of the public, I only knew Gabourey Sidibe from 'Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire' (Okay, seriously, if we're gonna do that, can we put it on the end of every movie adaptation of a novel? 'Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, based on the novel 'Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban' by JK Rowling). It was one of those movies that I wasn't sure if I wanted to even watch because just looking at Sidibe in the trailers made me uncomfortable.

(S35E19) All in all, a pretty mediocre episode. Ryan Phillippe didn't seem to stretch himself in any way. Well, okay, okay, he dressed up as a chick for a sketch, but apart from that, there was no palpable attempt to celebrate the fact that Ryan Phillippe was hosting or play to his strengths. I mean, I won't pretend I know what those particular strengths are, but 'Saturday Night Live' usually does a fair job of letting hosts try something dramatically out of their comfort zone or play up something unexpected. There was no sense of that in this episode.

Maybe they wanted to keep the episode toned down to counter whatever amount of crazy Ke$Ha wanted to unleash. By the way, that girl looks like she perpetually smells like drugstore watermelon body spray and BO. If that's the look she's going for, she's really nailing it.

(S35E18) Tina Fey gives hope to all nerdy funny girls out there. You may be frumpy and strange now, girls, but all you have to do is work really hard, be yourself, create/write/star in a hit show with Alec Baldwin and become super-famous. Then you will finally be able to soothe the flame of self-hate this is currently raging within you. This is the only option to escape your ugly duckling phase. Sorry if you were convinced otherwise.

All right, seriously, this was a solid episode. It felt like Fey had a strong hand in what kind of material was being produced; most of the sketches worked very well for her. This was also the first time I had heard Justin Bieber. And that's all I'm going to say about that.

(S35E17) Congratulations, Jude Law. That was a solid episode all around and a fine return to the 'Saturday Night Live' stage. And despite the fact that Pearl Jam was virtually unrecognizable to any ears that haven't heard them since the early-'90s, at least Law's musical guest didn't have any reason to do an awkward hoedown during a career-crippling blunder.

Cold Open: Of course they had to talk about this. Of course. Now, if you haven't read up on the incredibly weird Eric Massa story, it probably would have seemed like 'SNL' was just making up most of it. Unfortunately, they weren't. Maybe that's why they felt that ridiculously long intro was necessary? Anyway, the treatment of this topic was all right, though the absolute best part was Bobby Moynihan as Massa, attempting stealth snorkeling on Andy Samberg (the weak distraction was especially nice). And no, sorry, you can't unsee it.

(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.