Make no mistake: Mike Hale, TV critic of the New York Times, despises Donald Trump.  But even he sees the problem with Saturday Night Live's relentless attacks on the Trump administration.  In a Sunday edition article titled "Review: 'S.N.L.' Targets Trump Again, With a Hint of Exhaustion," he outlines his concerns that mere weeks into the Trump presidency, the hatred may be entering counterproductive territory with last Saturday's show.

But there was a sense of exhaustion – of "How long can we keep this up?" – that was made explicit in the court sketch when Cecily Strong, as the judge, said to Mr. Baldwin's Trump: "You're doing too much. I want one day without a CNN alert that scares the hell out of me." It was delivered plaintively, not as a laugh line but as a weary, nervous plea.

Ms. McCarthy opened the show as Mr. Spicer, and the news-briefing sketch was again the high point. Its simple premise – take the thin-skinned, venomous attitude and brazen duplicity the Trump administration has exhibited and render them as naked, schoolyard-bully aggression – was still effective, coupled with Ms. McCarthy's absolute commitment.

But the sketch was even more underwritten than before, name-checking controversies rather than illuminating them, which has been true of most of the show's Trump-related material. In the absence of new ideas, old ones recycled from last week's sketch were simply amped up: The wad of chewing gum was bigger, the weaponized rostrum was now motorized. The physical attacks on reporters here included an assault with a leaf blower, which was jolting and kind of fascinating when the machine was pointed at the face of a reporter played by Ms. Strong, but not so funny when it was used to blow her skirt up over her head. ...

The episode's funnier moments were mostly Trump-free. ...

 Based on Saturday's episode, it will be a hard if not impossible task to keep up for four years, if Mr. Trump stays in power that long and keeps making news – and outraging much of the country – at his current rate.

The last comments are remarkable for their immersion in the Blue Bubble.  Leftists are outraged at Trump, but there is no evidence that the country as a whole is outraged.  Pussy hats and riots are not attracting new adherents.  A majority supports the visa pause for terror hotspot countries, while the left fulminates.  And the longing for Trump to be impeached, to be assassinated, or to die in office – not to mention a military coup as hypothesized by a former Obama administration official in a "serious" journal – reveals full-blown Trump Derangement Syndrome.