I do think you can sometimes pick up when Scott doesn't think a character is working very well - I'm thinking of the episode with Brendon Small introducing a new character beside Victor and Tiny.

I can literally not recall one joke from a Nolan Batman film. Your quotes don't help your thesis much, either.

I haven't been a big fan of the Tournament. It might also be because Susser really rubs me up the wrong way.

Nobody is writing great SNL sketches.

That was easily the best sketch of the night. Dinklage really sold that character.

Did she actually sing "you're like drugs to me"..?

They aged, and thus were humanely destroyed.

So those are the two choices now? Sexy baby voice, singing about boys or warbling old jazz standards. And that isn't horribly regressive and ageist?

YES!! She's ridiculous.

… Numan!!

Nothing against this guy, but the music that the SNL house band plays interstitially, always comes across to me as the worst kind of endless muzak. Can't stand it.

It used to be a lot lighter, I feel, and a lot more fun. It also would actually make me laugh. I miss that about Portlandia.

Well, that was a waste of a season.

My only laugh this episode.

Jon Stewart used to do it on the Daily Show. It's just filling time.

You're right, I have heard them called pads. This might be a UK/US distinction.

I find them funny in small doses, and I did enjoy the episode telling their 'origin story' (that, at least, had some surprises), but this episode didn't do anything new or interesting with them.

Agreed. The more varied sketch-format works a lot better. The 'Did you read'-sketch from season 1 is still one of their best, I feel.

I genuinely never heard them called 'feminine napkins' before, that's interesting. I know them as sanitary towels (which is just as silly a name).

There's the problem - it's fine to do these episodes focusing on one set of characters, but the stories they're telling are really tired and predictable. It just makes me think they have nothing left to say with these characters, so why not try something actually new?