The 2016 US presidential campaign trail was parodied over the weekend on Saturday Night Live, with Alec Baldwin pulling off an eerily realistic Donald Trump impersonation.
The 30 Rock star recreated the first presidential debate, which took place last week, alongside Kate McKinnon as Hillary Clinton.
The iconic comedy show didn't mock one candidate more than the other, balancing its jokes between them fairly evenly, and didn't push the envelope much - mostly just repeating parts of the actual debate between the real candidates.
A TV star himself with no prior experience as a politician, Mr Trump's campaign has been marked by several moments of outrageousness that the SNL sketch didn't come close to.
The New York Times says the show "played it down the middle" and faces the tough question of "whether it can have any satirical bite on Mr Trump".
Slate magazine says the real debate was "faithfully recreated" and awards "top marks to everyone involved for somehow turning a national disgrace into something worth laughing about".
"The strangest thing about Baldwin's take on Trump... was that it really wasn't all that different from what we've seen over the last year from the real Trump. The sketch just went a few steps further than Trump typically goes (while holding back from how far Trump can actually go)," writes Uproxx.com.
"As long as the real-world Trump keeps delivering debate performances like his first, all the SNL writers will have to do is get a hold of the transcript, slap a hairpiece on the clearly game Baldwin, and turn him loose," concedes the AV Club.
The mock presidential debate was the opening sketch on the debut episode of the 42nd season of Saturday Night Live.
Newshub.
