As usual, “Saturday Night Live” was a lesser entertainment option than going out, drinking too much, and having unprotected sex with a stranger. Drew Barrymore hosted the season’s third episode, and it boasted even fewer highlights than the first two (Megan Fox and Ryan Reynolds). My preferred talking points:

  • The skit above was the most enjoyable for me, if only because (a) I can’t stand Guy Fieri, (b) it’s the only time I enjoy a character from Bobby Moynihan, and (c) I like the idea of Guy Fieri being torn to pieces  and skeletonized by birds.
  • The cold open wasn’t bad. Keeping skits under three minutes is a great way to make sure you don’t wear out a joke.
  • The monologue proved that the cold open’s brevity was a fluke: using Barrymore’s lineage to poke fun at her acting style worked with Kristen Wiig and Bill Hader, but as usual the writers failed by trying to get twice the mileage out of the joke.
  • The episode took me slightly longer to watch than usual because I had to indulge my nerdy whiteboy crush on Regina Spektor.
  • I’m the biggest Kristen Wiig fan around, but the Gilly sketches are BRUTAL. Painfully slow.

Eh, there’s other stuff I could go into from the second half of the episode (like the digital short that wasn’t half as good as anything on Everything is Terrible), but really, what’s the point? “SNL” remains watchable, with long dull stretches punctuated with moments of brilliance. A subpar episode isn’t worth bemoaning. Not unless you’re trying to kill time in the break room before getting back to that spreadsheet.