shales had always been "saturday night"<nowiki>'</nowiki>s strongest and most prestigious booster, and thus his reaction to the new show was more important than most. the headline on his review read from yuk to yeccch. the first sentence was: "vile from new york—it's "saturday night"." the show, shales said, was a "snide and sordid embarrassment". it imitated the "ribaldry and willingness to prod sacred cows" of the lorne michaels years without having the least "compensating satirical edge". it was, he wrote, "just haplessly pointless tastelessness". shales concluded that despite one or two imaginative moments from the show's filmmakers, "from the six new performers and 13 new writers hired for the show, viewers got virtually no good news."... jean made it clear that she thought the writing was primarily at fault. "it's just "got" to be funnier," she said. then she put a tape of the show on her videocassette machine to begin a sketch-by-sketch critique. according to writer billy brown, as she did she said, "watch this. and i hope you hate it, because you wrote it."