Some of the early skits were good - especially Will Forte dancing; his imp of the strange is usually good for a few laughs. But seriously, SNL has been second fiddle to MadTV for some years now. MadTV manages to be relevant, hip and funny at the same time. SNL usually manages to be poorly written and mostly unfunny. Sudeikis, Hader and Samberg - oh, and Kristen Wiig, have pumped some new life into the show, but the writing is just not up to snuff.
Oh, and a serious cancellation of kudos are in order for generally booking the most mainstream awful bands available. They did have the Arcade Fire recently, though, which was nice...