TV review: Lindsay Lohan falls flat on ‘Saturday Night Live’

By Alex Antonetz

Lindsay Lohan hosted a much-ballyhooed episode of “Saturday Night Live” last week — an episode that, for all intents and purposes, was just as putrid as every other “SNL” episode for the better part of a decade.

Lohan had the chance to impress during one particular fast-paced bit with Kenan Thompson in which they lambasted three guys accused of stealing bikes. However, the bit turned out to be a showcase for awkward AIDS and prison rape jokes instead, in which Lohan jumbled her lines several times and didn’t do a particularly good job of acting like she wasn’t reading her lines off of cue cards. Not even self-deprecating “Herbie: Fully Loaded” jokes could save it.

The highlight of the episode was a bit titled “The Real Housewives of Disney,” in which Lohan, as well as several other female members of the cast, portrayed catty Disney princesses in the same vein as the hit Bravo reality series. It wasn’t Lohan who carried the skit, however — that was Kristen Wiig, who played an alcoholic Cinderella.

The rest of the episode was rather mediocre. A few bits fell flat on their face. A bit called “Rude Buddha” was a real chore to watch, as it wasn’t much more than incredibly lame puns. Another bit, in which several of the female cast dressed as ‘50s characters and danced in the street, revolved around one joke: getting hit by cars.

There were seemingly only two skits where Lohan felt comfortable. In one, she was one of three white radio hosts on a Wisconsin hip-hop station in which she proclaimed that she couldn’t read. In the other, she helped Wiig discover that the 196 calls she was receiving weren’t from a serial killer, but rather from her butt-dialing herself.

Not even the monologue was moving. Though “SNL” is no stranger to playing off the obvious, enlisting cast members to act as parole officers was particularly uninspired. Maybe that’s part of the problem. “SNL” has been suffering for far too long from a crippling disorder: being unfunny.

I can’t really fault Lohan for her performance. She never seemed particularly energetic and it was obvious live comedy isn’t her schtick, but that doesn’t much matter. Sure, she sucked, but the show itself sucks, too.

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