SNL: Game of Thrones Jokes Are a Miss for Peter Dinklage

Saturday Night Live kicked off with another attempt to railroad Donald Trump, a motif that has worked really well for them over the past several weeks. However, Saturday's cold open that went into "the heart of Trumpville" failed to provide the same smart comedy as previous sketches. Or maybe it's just gotten too close to the truth to provide laughs.

One would think that Game of Throneswould be a deep well of funny material for host Peter Dinklage - between the worst-kept secret in Westeros of Kit Harington's return to the show, George R.R. Martin failing to get the next book on the shelves before the new season, and the show's controversial continuous abuse of women.

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The actor hit all three of those hot button issues in his short opening monologue, but none of them carried the punch you'd hope for. Sorry, Peter, but no one believes that you don't know what's happening with Jon Snow at this point. On the upside, who doesn't want to see Leslie Jones as a dragon now?

Bobby Moynihan took a stab at playing a dragon for the "Behind the Scenes of Game of Thrones Season 6" sketch. It had more chuckles than the monologue for sure, but when the highlight of the sketch is a "I peed my pants joke," it still feels like we could do better.

Lackluster Game of Thrones jokes did not condemn the rest of the show though. Dinklage was star of two of the night's best sketches, including "Naked and Afraid: Celebrity Edition." The parody of Discovery Channel's survival series had Dinklage and Jones pairing up again for 21 naked days in the woods. Jones was in full hot-sauce-in-my-bag swag (literally, she brought hot sauce as her survival item), while Dinklage thwarted her sexual advances and attempts to eat him. If this were a real show it'd be a must-watch.

Dinklage went from naked to a snazzy suit for "Vacation Nightmares," which brutally took down the cheesy re-enactments of real crime docuseries. Kate McKinnon and Aidy Bryant steal the scene a bit here as two Danish muggers attacking a doe-eyed American couple. If you had a drinking game for how many times SNL says "bitch" in one episode, this is the golden sketch for you.

What did you think of Peter Dinklage as SNL host?