Kristen Wiig hosted this week's episode of Saturday Night Live, which was a strange choice considering she's still a cast member on the show, and an even stranger choice given that pop singer Katy Perry was always standing around in sketches and could easily have filled in as the celebrity host.

Just kidding! I like to have fun. Perry was actually the host this week, but apparently SNL was hedging its bets that she might not work (despite the fact that she is known for her comic ability and little else), so Wiig appeared front and center in a majority of the night's sketches.

And, in case that wasn't enough, the show also loaded this week's episode with guest star appearances (from Darrell Hammond, Matt Damon, Val Kilmer and Alec Baldwin) and even jammed musical numbers or songs into a number of the sketches. They weren't taking any chances.

Overall, Perry was pretty much exactly what I expected she would be when I first heard she had been tapped to host and not sing (though she did plenty of that). She's not an actress and that was obvious, and she's not all that funny and that was obvious (though I get the feeling she would disagree with me about not being funny), but she was fine. By "fine" I mean "not great," but the episode built in enough failsafes that it was easy to overlook her performance and just focus on everything else.

Sketch Highlights

• "Cold Open: On the Record" - Another week, another weak political opener. I'm as happy as anyone to see Darrell Hammond show up (especially now that I know he may or may not be on crack!), and his Donald Trump impression really is incredibly well-observed, but much of the time it felt more like the actual Trump speaking instead of a comedy sketch based around Trump. I know that worked back when Tina Fey used to do Sarah Palin -- they could just use the actual transcripts of things Palin had said -- but the same approach isn't as effective with Trump. I know it's hard to make someone so cartoonish even more so, but this just felt uninspired. It was, however, the first of many examples of guest stars and window dressing being incorporated throughout the night. I wonder why? (Watch the "Cold Open: On the Record" video)

• "J-Pop Talk Show" - The first of only two repeat sketches this week, which is good, but this one doesn't really have staying power. I was particularly surprised to see it basically lead off the show. All the stuff with Jason Sudekis explaining that they're being kind of racist steps on the joke, as though the show is afraid the viewers won't understand and accuse Saturday Night Live of being racist. A word about Taran Killam, though: I've been pretty open about how much I enjoy his work on the show, and a sketch like "J-Pop" is a great example of why. Even when a sketch isn't really working, he has so much energy and confidence that you would swear it's a really good sketch -- he performs everything as though it's A-material, so even a so-so sketch like this one is carried by his enthusiasm and talent. I imagine it won't be long before he's being overused (the show has a tendency of abusing talent), so I'll just have to admire his inspired work right now. (Watch the "J-Pop Talk Show" video)
• "Finnish Talk Show" - Katy Perry only played herself once in the episode, which is good, I guess, especially when she does it as unconvincingly as she does here. That's not fair; she was fine, I guess, especially given that this was clearly a sketch designed to showcase Kristen Wiig, who was all over this episode. Expect this to show up many more times, because a) it's Kristen Wiig, b) it's Kristen Wiig doing a funny voice and c) it has that repeatable "We have a clip" catch phrase. It's the complete formula for something we'll all be sick of soon. (Watch the "Finnish Talk Show" video)
• "Digital Short: Best Friends" - My overall attempt at positivity this season hasn't really extended itself to the weekly Digital Shorts, of which I still tend to be overly critical for some reason. I'm working on that. This week's effort was amusing enough, making fine use of Katy Perry and throwing some guest stars into the mix to at least keep things surprising. Matt Damon is welcome in almost anything (see: Eurotrip), but the appearance of Val Kilmer as a mad scientist was particularly inspired -- especially the strange doubling effect used on his vocal. I liked the Russian Roulette gag, and the ending was appropriately absurd. It was all still weird for weirdness' sake, but a pretty good example of that style of humor. With that, I'm spent. (Watch the "Digital Short: Best Friends" video)
• "Doggie Duty" - The terrible dog puns were funny in this one, as was the contempt that the sketch showed for high-concept Hollywood comedies, but the singer impressions mostly came up short. The best of the bunch was Katy Perry's spot-on impression of Florence (of "and the Machine," who appeared as musical guest just a few weeks ago), but even that was accurate without really being funny. I'm not surprised that so many sketches required Perry to sing, but the ruse became pretty obvious pretty quickly. (Watch the "Doggie Duty" video)
• "New Year's Eve Sequel" - These terrible, celebrity-filled Garry Marshall movies are ripe for parody, and would allow for SNL to do one of their spot-the-impression sketches organically for a change (for the opposite, see this week's "Doggy Duty" sketch). It's too bad, then, that this one was a disappointment; I like the idea of setting one of these ensemble barf fests around the apocalypse, but most of the impressions fell kind of flat. I like Kristen Wiig's Drew Barrymore and Taran Killam's Ashton Kutcher, and Bill Hader's Alan Alda is always good (even if it felt pretty shoehorned in because it's popular), but nothing else was very memorable. Katy Perry doing Christina Aguilera bordered on embarrassing, and for those of you who would suggest that I'm totally in the bag for Abby Elliot, I'll be the first to say that her Kirsten Dunst had very little to do with Kirsten Dunst. (Watch the "New Year's Eve Sequel" video)
• "Weekend Update: Captain Steve Rogers" - Alec Baldwin is always great on Saturday Night Live, and his appearances will always be welcome. This was a funny idea for a bit, and demonstrated once again that Alec Baldwin has a great sense of humor as long as he's acting on a sketch comedy show. Because in real life, I'm not so sure. Being able to poke fun at yourself on SNL does not excuse acting like a raging a-hole in life. So, you know, ha ha funny and everything, but seriously stop it. (Watch the "Weekend Update: Captain Steve Rogers" video)
• "Politics Nation with Al Sharpton" - I haven't watch the Al Sharpton TV series that this sketch is spoofing, so I can't comment on whether or not he makes a lot of mistakes when speaking. That was pretty much all there was to this one; well, that and Katy Perry's pundit "acting," which reminded me of how a child might try and imitate one of the talking heads they see on cable news. Pretty much a misfire all around. (Watch the "Politics Nation" video)
• "Pippa Visits the Queen" - SNL has already done this sketch a couple of times, and, much as I like the exaggerated cockney accents of Bill Hader and Fred Armisen, I wasn't all that excited to see it show up again. I'll give the sketch this much credit: at least there was some attempt at changing things up a little and going in a direction we didn't quite expect (the show doesn't always attempt as much with repeat sketches). It may have leaned to heavily on the comic abilities of Katy Perry, but saved itself in the end by having Fred Armisen perform a song. It's another example of the episode throwing a whole bunch of extra stuff in to compensate for the host's possible shortcomings, but I didn't mind as soon as Kenan Thompson and Jay Pharoah showed up as the requisite ska dancers. (Watch the "Pippa Visits the Queen" video)
• "One Magical Night" - This was a sketch with a lot of problems, but I kind of liked it overall. It's along the lines of something the show has done before, only in the past it was Kenan Thompson interrupting the love connection as a soul singer instead of Jason Sudekis' lounge act, but I'm ok with that. I liked seeing all the cast members scattered throughout the bar, and enough of the jokes were silly and kind of funny (especially the one about the poetry of Jewel). Mostly, though, I thought it was a very well-directed sketch; it was blocked and moved in a way that was fluid and suggested a great deal of planning (much of it was to set up the gags off camera), and I liked the way it was all put together. The biggest issue with the sketch (besides Katy Perry not really being present and relying heavily on cue cards) is that the song -- while kind of cute -- broke up the jokes too much, and they weren't always worth the wait. If you're going to space out the laughs, you've got to make sure that every one of them lands hard, and I don't quite think that was accomplished here. Still, like I said, I liked the sketch, and Bobby Moynihan's timing at the very end made the whole thing worth it. (Watch the "One Magical Night" video)

• Original Air Date: 12/10/11
• Host: Katy Perry
• Musical Guest: Robyn