SNL: I like things that are great

Shock of shocks: Alec Baldwin hosts, and "Saturday Night Live" delivers its best episode of the season.

It wasn't a consistent masterpiece and I felt like they relied too often on surprise cameos in lieu of actual jokes (the monologue in particular was just several minutes of "Please watch '30 Rock'!"), but I liked the Nancy Pelosi opening (a compendium of every Republican caricature of Pelosi), the quasi-sequel to the Tom Hanks Five-Timers Club with Steve Martin (particularly Baldwin's "I was in 'Schwetty Balls'!" taunt), and thought the carpooling sketch was kind of great, particularly Baldwin's line about Bobby McPherrin. (It was also a rare example of a sketch that had a distinct beginning, middle and end instead of a fake TV show parody with a theme song to get the writers around that problem.) I'm not a big Aguilera fan, but loved her duet with the real Tony Bennett; too bad they couldn't figure out a way to get The Cute Beatle to sing with one of them or the other.