Tinavision

Last night's Saturday Night Live was the last one before the election (not counting tomorrow's Presidential Bash), so it continued the trend of political relevance with two appearances by Senator John McCain. Unlike Governor Sarah Palin, who mostly just stood there and took the hits in her SNL cameos, McCain took a very active part on the show. As a former host, he was comfortable, relaxed, and pretty funny. Here's his opening bit with Tina Fey returning as Palin:



As he did in his speech at the Al Smith Memorial dinner (which you can find in the blog post "America's Funniest Presidential Candidate"), McCain shows his willingness to laugh at himself. With jokes about McCain/Palin only being able to afford a broadcast on QVC and a bit on Palin going rogue for 2012, McCain seems like a good sport for taking part in it. Also, jokes like McCain Fine Gold (after McCain-Feingold) and using Cindy McCain as a jewelry model were pretty funny. But by the time McCain said to put "country first" at the polls, I couldn't help but feel like the whole segment might just be free campaigning time for McCain.

Ben Affleck's monologue was about 30 seconds long with no explanation of why he was chosen to host. A sketch on The View let Affleck do a pretty decent Alec Baldwin impression and had a lot of insults for Elizabeth Hasselbeck, but otherwise wasn't too funny. So the next notable sketch was Affleck's imitation of MSNBC's Keith Olbermann:



Once again, Affleck did a surprisingly good imitation, especially when he did Olbermann's fast speech. The sketch starts funny when Olbermann's bashing Bush and McCain, but far outstays its welcome with all the stuff about his cat. Olbermann is a ridiculous enough figure that staying on point would have been a much better way to mock him.

As last night stood by the rule that all non-political SNL sketches suck, the last thing worth mentioning is McCain's appearance on Weekend Update (which, by the way, was much better in the solo-host format than last week when Seth Meyers wasn't prepared):



Once again, McCain proved a good sport and showed good comic timing while joking about his lag in the polls and overuse of the word maverick. He seemed like he was trying too hard for some of it, but he is a politician, not a comedian. Still felt a bit like free campaigning though when he brought up connecting with voters and relying on his record.

Finally, a few words on Thursday night's season premiere of 30 Rock.



With all of the many big name guest stars announced (Oprah, Jennifer Aniston, Steve Martin), it seemed like 30 Rock was heading straight for the Will & Grace path, in which the show depends entirely on the guest-star-of-the-week. But even with Will & Grace's Megan Mullally to make that official, the show managed just fine. Rather than taking over the show, Mullally just did her job and let Tina Fey keep the spotlight. Elsewhere, Jack got his job back (yay), Devon acted like, well, GOB Bluth, and Jenna was thankfully not onscreen too much. Assuming the guest stars remain at bay, 30 Rock is looking at another thoroughly entertaining season (though I still don't think it's the best comedy on TV).