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James Austin Johnson had one of the most immediately impactful first episodes for an SNL featured player ever
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Terrence Clay
Oct 4, 2021, 5:20:33 PM10/4/21
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https://www.avclub.com/a-relaxed-owen-wilson-ushers-saturday-night-live-back-f-1847788955
"Coming out to the distinct sound of everybody straining to see just who was under that Joe Biden makeup, Johnson had big shoes to fill," says Dennis Perkins. "No, not Alex Moffat’s, as Alex’s indifferent and never-embraced Biden is officially no more. (Moffat got the consolation prize of playing Chuck Schumer in the cold open, which seems about right.) A presidential impression is an SNL golden ticket, and Johnson cashed in with a more interesting and inhabited Biden than either Moffat or visiting POTUS Jim Carrey pulled off. New hire Johnson was likely brought on because of his viral Trump, a sensational creation made of uncanny vocal impression with a free-form, improvisational snap. No doubt Johnson will have occasion to bust out his Trump at some point in what promises to be some even more hellish election seasons to come, but his Biden is a similarly smart and canny character, balancing exaggeration and verisimilitude in a way most SNL impressions don’t. It’s already miles better than Alec Baldwin’s Trump, and that’s without all the already clownish, exaggerated Trump-isms to play with...As for the sketch, that’s pretty good too, especially considering how dire the Baldwin stuff got, and how comparatively difficult Biden is to make funny. I came to dread SNL’s cold opens over the past five years, which is not how you want your comedy show to start. Here, apart from the novelty of a new Biden, the writing was sharper, as, perhaps, the lack of such a big, buffoonish, reliably ridiculous target to lob tomatoes at allowed the writers to dig a little deeper for the jokes. Cecily (Strong), naturally, was the standout, her (Kyrsten) Sinema continuing her agenda-stalling grandstanding by hinting that she’s deriving some deep satisfaction from being in the limelight."
"Coming out to the distinct sound of everybody straining to see just who was under that Joe Biden makeup, Johnson had big shoes to fill," says Dennis Perkins. "No, not Alex Moffat’s, as Alex’s indifferent and never-embraced Biden is officially no more. (Moffat got the consolation prize of playing Chuck Schumer in the cold open, which seems about right.) A presidential impression is an SNL golden ticket, and Johnson cashed in with a more interesting and inhabited Biden than either Moffat or visiting POTUS Jim Carrey pulled off. New hire Johnson was likely brought on because of his viral Trump, a sensational creation made of uncanny vocal impression with a free-form, improvisational snap. No doubt Johnson will have occasion to bust out his Trump at some point in what promises to be some even more hellish election seasons to come, but his Biden is a similarly smart and canny character, balancing exaggeration and verisimilitude in a way most SNL impressions don’t. It’s already miles better than Alec Baldwin’s Trump, and that’s without all the already clownish, exaggerated Trump-isms to play with...As for the sketch, that’s pretty good too, especially considering how dire the Baldwin stuff got, and how comparatively difficult Biden is to make funny. I came to dread SNL’s cold opens over the past five years, which is not how you want your comedy show to start. Here, apart from the novelty of a new Biden, the writing was sharper, as, perhaps, the lack of such a big, buffoonish, reliably ridiculous target to lob tomatoes at allowed the writers to dig a little deeper for the jokes. Cecily (Strong), naturally, was the standout, her (Kyrsten) Sinema continuing her agenda-stalling grandstanding by hinting that she’s deriving some deep satisfaction from being in the limelight."
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