Tracy Morgan is back! Not that he ever really left the building, as he just moved to a different floor to star in 30 Rock, but he’s back on SNL. Going into this episode, I was curious about how Morgan would do, because, frankly, he was never really that prominent when he was a cast member.

Morgan did an adequate job, even if he spent most of the time blatantly reading cue cards. I thought it was kind of charming, like when Christopher Walken does it. I thought the material in this episode was pretty good. There was a great digital short, a good Weekend Update, live animals on live TV, a Tina Fey sighting, lots of Tracy Morgan in drag, and most importantly: there were no poop jokes! Only a few of the sketches fell flat for me.

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I know that everyone was really excited about NPH hosting SNL, and I certainly thought that it paid off. Expectations are hard to meet, especially when you’re talking about Saturday Night Live, but I thought that this week’s episode was one of the best of the season. Between rocking out the Doogie Howser theme on a keyboard, slapping on a horrible wig and some massive press-on nails, and delivering a great monologue, NPH gave a great performance. Because we like to speak in hyperbole, and arbitrarily rank unimportant things, I have to ask the question: Was Neil Patrick Harris the best host yet this season?

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Cate Cropp, a Jersey girl living in Portugal who just can’t give up American TV, is back guest clacking for us again today.

I’m from New Jersey, a place that TV writers like to poke fun at, well, often.  How I Met Your Mother dedicated an entire episode to making fun of the state as Ted contemplated moving there. Ted going to the bathroom to drop a huge New Jersey ring a bell?  So I’m used to my home turf getting made fun of, and for me it’s always good for a laugh.

When I moved to Portugal almost five years ago, I never expected to get the same kind of gratification with my new home.  However, the more TV I watched, the more jokes about Portugal I noticed.  I remember in particular one episode of Judging Amy, where they’ve just moved into a new house.  They have practically no food in the house and in the morning, before school, Amy serves her daughter some stale-looking toast with waxy, not-quite-melted cheese on top and some green pimiento-stuffed olives and says, “Eat up, we have to go!” The little girl looks at it and says, “That’s not breakfast!” and her mom replies, “it is in Portugal, now eat!”

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(Season 34, Episode 10)

My hopes were really high when I saw that John Malkovich was hosting this week. I remember his hysterical monologue from when he hosted in 1993. It consisted of him trying to hit a baseball into the audience, but he never made contact. As he kept missing he kept swinging harder and harder and getting angrier and angrier. Does anyone else remember this?

The thing about Malkovich is he is super creepy, but obviously has a good sense of humor about himself (I think Being John Malkovich proved this). So… How did the episode play out? Let’s find out….

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