With piles of homework littered around my room, I set out to watch Riley Rewind, a five part web series viewable on YouTube that was published Thursday, December 12th, first on Facebook, then finally on director Ray William Johnson's channel. The series follows Riley Brown (Anna Akana), a girl in highschool who has the ability to go travel back in time. It deals with her moral struggle to choose between saving Angela Vaughn (Christina Marie Leonard), a girl who commits suicide, or saving herself from deteriorating as she uses time travel increasingly more often. At the same time, she finds a bomb at her school's prom days after Angela Vaughn's suicide. It is honestly probably one of the best YouTube series I've seen with hand drawn animation sequences, beautiful shots and extremely believable acting. I truly felt for Trevor Cunningham (Eric Braun), the nerd who asks Riley Brown to prom, and understood the bomber's reasons for putting the bomb. With its interesting twists and turns, some unexpected, the series almost had me tearing up at the end. Clocking at about an hour in length, I would suggest this to anyone who enjoys a good, quick, feel-good film, especially those who are procrastinating on homework like I was!

Aamenah Meghjee

Paul Rudd and One Direction on Saturday Night Live? Sounds like a great Saturday to me.

A cold-open based upon the Sound of Music special that aired on Thursday that featured departed cast members Kristen Wiig and Fred Armisen began the show. It was going to be a good hour and a half. The opening monologue had Paul Rudd happily remarking how he was finally the star of the show without having a musical superstar overshadow him. One Direction then walked on stage. Oops, sorry Paul. But the English boy band would have to contend with Rudd's own 'Man Band'  consisting of Anchorman co-stars Will Ferrell, David Koechner and Steve Carell. The men proclaimed themselves 'Nine Direction'. Hilarity Ensued. It was a fun episode following a few duds. Some standout sketches include Rudd as a middle-aged directioner in a sea of tween girls; a slimmed down Santa sharing his new life with his horrified elves; and a bittersweet Weekend Update with special guests Jacob the Bar Mitzvah boy and 1860's newspaper critic Jebidiah Atkinson. Bittersweet because Seth Meyers days as cohost of the SNL staple are numbered as he will soon move to another late night show, replacing Jimmy Fallon (who happens to be hosting SNL on Dec 21) on Late Night.

 Then of course there were the boys. Singing hits off their swoon-worthy new album Midnight Memories. They had me smiling, that's for sure. Okay, maybe I cried a little too, but that's besides the point. 

Overall, it was an episode better than most in what has been an inconsistent season of the NBC classic.  

-Rachel Ruecker