‘SNL’ blame game: were the writers or January Jones at fault?

On the one hand, you have to feel bad for January Jones.

She’s a stunningly beautiful actress and impressive as repressed ’60s housewife Betty Draper on “Mad Men,” both of which are enough to earn her plenty of attention in Hollywood but neither of which is adequate preparation for hosting “Saturday Night Live.”

And yet, host it she did this weekend, to unimpressive results. The famous dictum “Dying is easy, comedy is hard,” was never more apt than it was Saturday night in describing Jones’ forced-smile cheer and clunky, square-peg/round-hole performance; that is, in the few live sketches in which she was allowed to blurt out lines from cue cards. When your host actually looks out of the frame and whispers, “Which camera?” you know you’re in for a long night of awkwardness.

But… on the other hand: was there a writers’ strike at 30 Rock we didn’t know about? January Jones may not be the world’s most gifted comic talent, but neither was Taylor Swift and she managed to carry 90 minutes a week earlier. Perhaps Jones was undone by some of the laziest comedy writing we’ve seen this season on “SNL:” Dr. Jeckyll/Mr. Hyde is gay and an entire skit about Grace Kelly farting.

Yes, you read that correctly. Grace Kelly farts a lot. That was the whole joke. Is “SNL” skipping the 18-49 demo and going right after the 12-17 target? Or perhaps letting that demo write the show? You had to feel bad for Jones as she gamely giggled her way through the juvenilia.

Oh — and the terrible Black Eyed Peas were given the rare gift of three segments to perform; it was as if the entire show just got tired of trying and gave up.

It’s not unusual these days for “SNL” to be uneven, and every so often you read an article about — or talk to a viewer who will mention — that people don’t watch the show as often as they used to; but it’s not often you see people take to the Internet almost immediately to complain about how bad an individual episode is. But complain they did…

So… who was a fault here: January Jones or the “SNL” writers? Watch the episode if you haven’t already and take the poll…

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