Star Trek’s pretty cool most of the time, right? Traveling space and exploring the stars sounds like a dream, but one we may not live to see. Unless you’re Jeff Bezos, of course, and a new Saturday Night Live sketch reminds us how much it sucks that only the elite gets to experience space.
With Owen Wilson as the first guest of its 47th season, last night’s premiere featured a sketch that saw Marvel’s Loki star take on the role of Amazon’s ex-CEO Jeff Bezos. In the cleverly named Star Trek: Ego Quest, Bezos is the cowboy hat-wearing captain of the SS New Shipment. No ship is complete without its crew, and Bezos’ includes his younger brother Mark (played by Wilson’s brother Luke), Dutch 18-year-old Oliver Daemon, and astronaut Wally Funk! All three joined Bezos on his space flight this past July. “Their mission,” the narrator intones, “to just sorta fly around space goofing off… in a ship that looks like a penis.” Joining the prestigious Paramount+ lineup of Star Trek shows in 2023, naturally.
As a Star Trek sketch, it’s pretty funny. Wilson gets to go goofy in a way he hasn’t gotten to in some time as Bezos dicks around with Richard Branson and the pair casually flaunts their wealth by crashing into space stations. Other than a pretty solid dig about Amazon’s well-reported poor treatment of its workers, the best moment comes with the cameo of Elon Musk (Mikey Day) and his SpaceX vessel. That weird twitch Musk has as he laughs is haunting.
Wilson’s other Amazon-related sketch is maybe too weird for its own good. It starts with him and a group of friends trying to evenly split their checks. Just as Wilson’s orders get bigger and stranger, things take a hard left turn and bring Nazis into the picture. It’s supposed to be a dig at Amazon Prime’s various TV shows, but the punchline takes a little too long to get there. So basically, it’s a standard SNL sketch.
Still, Wilson’s Star Trek sketch comes at just the right time. At the end of the month on October 28, Prodigy will hit Paramount+ and be the first kids show for the series. The following month on November 18, Discovery will return for its fourth season. Star Trek’s other two big shows—Strange New Worlds and the second season of Picard—will both land in 2022.
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