Saturday Night Live has been through its ups and downs since it began in the 1970’s and in the past couple of years it seems to be mostly downs.

It seems that there was a certain point a few years ago where SNL lost the spark that made it so great and became a very generic sketch show that had lost its relevancy. I think it was mostly due to the mass exodus of the show’s best cast members to the big screen or other projects that left a large hole that no new cast member was able to fill. In 2006 SNL lost many of their major cast members, including Rachel Dratch, Tina Fey, Finesse Mitchell, Chris Parnel and Horatio Sanz, many of which had been with the show for several years. I think SNL went through a period where it lost its personality and either tried new things that just didn’t fit or tried to force their new stars into the old mold, but to no avail.

However in the past year or so it seems like SNL may have found itself once more…

Relative newcomers to the show, Andy Samberg and Bill Hader have both found success outside of the latenight weekend time slot; Samberg with the massive success of the Digital Shorts and Lonely Island collaboration, and Hader with the Apatow crowd. So the ‘new’ SNL has some star power, but what is different about the show itself?

Not that long ago, it seemed like SNL was working with the philosophy that all they had to do is make fun of the president and throw in a few obnoxious characters and their job was done. Well it’s easy to make fun of George W. Bush and the “I’m making loud noises” schtick only really works with Will Ferrell. Lately, though it seems like the type of comedy the SNL staff is working with has changed.

One example is the skit, “What up with that,” where Kenan Thompson plays a spotlight-craving stage performer turned talk show host with guests like former vice-president Al Gore, James Franco and others. At first glance this would seem like any other ‘crazy character’ sketch, but when it gets time for the interview of his guests, Thompson keeps singing, and dancing… and doesn’t stop. It’s at this point that you realize the skit has nothing to do with the over the top songs or acting, but the very notion of inviting such huge guest stars on, just to ignore them. Not many shows save Tim and Eric’s Awesome Show, Great Job! have the comedic balls to make the statement that it’s not how you use the celebrity, but how you misuse them.

While SNL will never be what it was in decades past, it can be something new. The current cast is probably the best it has been in a few years and the writing staff has finally gotten their act together and are writing comedy instead of recycling it. Now if only they would stop choosing teenage pop stars for their hosts…

Are you a fan of Superman, the Justice League or DC Comics in general? Well prepare to get optically abused. The CW has just released pictures of the upcoming Smallville ‘event’ called Smallville: Absolute Justice.

The images include horribly campy renditions of some of DC’s more obscure heroes, including Hawkman, Doctor Fate and Stargirl posing awkwardly for the camera or in cheesy action poses.

For a while now Smallville has been a Bizzaro version of the DC Universe, but this is just getting ridiculous. They’re already so off canon, they might as well put a kryptonite bullet in Clark and save us all the misery. Take a look:

Source: io9

While nearly every Whedon fan could see this coming a mile away, Fox has cancelled ‘Dollhouse’ mid-way through its second season. The show has never boasted the best ratings or the best reviews, but it had enough decent episode to make its cancellation noteworthy.

What intrigued me most about Dollhouse was the exploration of the world between programming and instinct, and I think if there was one thing Whedon and clan succeeded in doing, it was this. Whether it was the dolls’ instinct to ‘flock’ with others already familiar to them or love transcending thought itself, the show successfully walked a fine line between depicting relentless brainwashing and the audacity of free will.

Dollhouse will finish out its 13 episode second season with 3 episodes in December and another 3 in the new year. Let’s just hope they don’t leave us with a cliff-hanger.

Having overlooked the original, mostly because it was made in the year of my birth, I went into watching ABC’s remake of “V” with a pretty open mind. I also had the luxury of watching it without any expectations of it living up to the previous version.

The first episode opened up strong with the suspenseful arrival of the Visitors (or V’s for short) above the largest cities on earth. The V’s ships soon turned into giant monitors, broadcasting the message from their leader. While I think the writers may have wanted to drag this out for a little longer, it’s apparent from the get-go that this is clearly alien propaganda. After the conclusion of the “we come in peace” speech, the show takes a very steep dive.

Very quickly “V” turned into a mess of unexplained leaps in story progression aided by sloppy writing and poor delivery by nearly all of the cast. The most unbearable of these exchanges are between a soon to be engaged couple, starting from an unbelievably poor cover up of a lie: Who’s on the phone? “No one.” (Really? Thats all you got?); to a painfully awkward declaration of love: “More than you’ll ever know…” (Come on! That’s what they say in comedies when they’re trying to be overly dramatic!)

The main female lead played by Elizabeth Mitchell of Lost fame is an FBI agent tracking down a splinter cell of unknown origin, while also trying to manage an unwieldy teenage son. While I have never disliked Mitchell, I find that most of her scenes are entirely forgettable. I always found she played a kind of nothing character in Lost as well, but it worked because her main role in the show is being ‘Not Kate’. It’s possible that Mitchell may grow into the role as the season progresses, but for right now I find myself hoping that Evangeline Lilly would jump into every scene and somehow be able to hate the aliens even harder.

While I really wanted to like “V”, I didn’t even get past the pilot before hating it. The fact is, when Scott Wolf is outperforming the entire cast (including Alan Tudyk?) then something is seriously wrong. But when the show’s writer has worked on such gems as Animorphs, Alien Tracker (Part One) and select episodes of the Outer Limits, what can you expect?

Popular cult hit writer/director Joss Whedon’s newest show Dollhouse about a group of mind-wiped, programmable ‘dolls’ has had mixed reviews and low ratings; however its brief glimpse into a post apocalyptic nightmare world in its first season’s hidden finale begs the question: could that be how the world ends?

In the episode ‘Epitaph One,’ Whedon and his crew skip forward a few centuries into a reality where the brainwashing technology has evolved a few generations and become much more dangerous. With the ability to erase minds from a distance, or reprogram them as enemy combatants; warring nations break out in a mind war- making half the world’s populace into mindless soldiers, and the other half just mindless.

So with the two competing doomsday scenarios ever-present in our society (either a nuclear holocaust or a major series of climate disasters), one has to wonder if Dollhouse presents a possible alternative to the end of the world. Could a corporate sponsored technology war be a more likely scenario? We all know that corporate greed has no bounds, and we are edging on some pretty freaky science these days, including brain/computer interfacing, memory erasure, and even thought identification.

If the day comes where the mind can be so easily manipulated, do you think we can keep our heads?

For more on the science behind ‘Dollhouse,’ check out io9’s article.