Since Adam Levine did it, it was just a matter of time before Blake Shelton came along to try to best his “Voice” rival on another platform: the stage of “Saturday Night Live.” Unfortunately for Team Blake, he’ll be taking credit for one of the season’s weaker offerings.
“SNL” did its best to accommodate its first country-music host since Taylor Swift in 2009 (back when she still sang country), casting Shelton as himself, a farmer, a country musician, a singer-songwriter for hire and himself again. Though he showed minimal range or acting talent, Shelton was at least a good sport. But he held the reins of an episode saddled with mediocre material.
The night’s twangy tone was set in the monologue, a re-creation of “Hee-Haw” complete with hay bale, overalls and a rather aghast Leslie Jones. (Perhaps this also was Lorne Michaels tipping a straw hat to his late manager, “Hee Haw” creator Bernie Brillstein.)
But the talker of the night was a music video casting the host as part of a country trio with Kate McKinnon and a Wynonna-like Aidy Bryant. While it lacked punchlines or even a comic theme, their ditty “Wishin’ Boot” was well-produced, catchy and packed with enough goofy moments to deserve its airtime.
Not so with another “Celebrity Family Feud,” this one pitting the “Voice” panel against judges past and present from “American Idol.” The gags were so limp and the impressions so embarrassingly feeble, it seemed like the set had fallen onto the stage and a bit was hastily produced around it. Taran Killam at least made a high-pitched attempt to mimic Levine, and the closer was his deep, longing gaze into Shelton’s eyes, the least welcome consummation of secret lust since Greg and Marcia in “A Very Brady Sequel.”
A pretty routine riff on “The Bachelor” had Shelton in the role of the Iowa hick choosing from a harem of 25, but on a show inexplicably called “Farm Hunk.” What, someone doesn’t want to offend Chris Harrison?
Other thoughts:
• The cold opening tried to find new ways to goof on Deflategate and failed, resorting to a spoof of Jack Nicholson’s “you can’t handle the truth” speech. Timely!
• Weekend Update had a little running gag built around Michael Che’s social life, as Bobby Moynihan played a friend named Riblet coveting Che’s job (or “jorb,” in what seemed to be the character’s only hook) and Sasheer Zamata played his resentful ex.
• Sometimes the biggest laughs come from the more esoteric sketches in the last half hour, but no such luck with this week’s tail-enders about a cannibal seeking parole, an old guy’s song to his late wife and a dork pestering a magician.
• Next week, the proud tradition of “SNL” as an Oscar campaign outlet resumes with host, best supporting actor nominee and Farmer’s Insurance pitchman J.K. Simmons.