NBC, 10:00 p.m. ET
It’s not unusual for, me to recommend Saturday Night Live as a Saturday Best Bet – but that’s normally when it’s a new late-night episode. This is an old episode, and it’s not in late night: It’s a cut-down, 60-minute version of a program from six years ago, presented in prime time. But this is the episode from Dec. 21, 2013, with Jimmy Fallon as guest host and Justin Timberlake as musical guest. You get a holiday installment of “Bring It on Down to Wrappinville,” and a bonus installment of “The Barry Gibb Talk Show,” reasons enough to tune in. Fallon and Timberlake have a great comic chemistry together, and are effortlessly musical. (When my book Dangerously Funny, about the Smothers Brothers, first was optioned as a possible movie, among my dream-cast wish list were Timberlake and Fallon as Tom and Dick Smothers, respectively. They could handle the comedy, and the music and singing, easily, and even have similar looks to the brothers themselves. But I digress.) Also in this 2013 show: Seth Meyers being handed the SNL “Weekend Update” baton – and Mayor Michael Bloomberg being asked about his future political ambitions. Whether that will make the final cut on this condensed hour is unknown… but tuning in to see remains the night’s most attractive viewing option.
