Yes, I’ve been devoting a sizable portion of my Saturday nights to watching SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE for now more than a half-century. That alone should sum up my dating and marriage history.
That lamentable fact aside, last season was a celebration–a time to fondly look back at the breadth and depth of talent and pop culture influence that has graced Studio 8H at 30 Rock since days when I gleefully snuck around backstage with nary a security guard in sight to gaze upon set pieces and even snag a buckslip or two off people’s desks in empty offices. The old and the new intertwined consistently, often with both hilarious and poignant results.
Last night, Season 51 kicked off, and I wish I could land on some other more positive description besides anticlimactic. Maybe I’m still reeling from the fact that the buildup for this season has seemingly been a series of announcements about cast and staff departures. E! NEWS’ Natalie Finn recapped exactly how malestrom-like the winds of change have been in a preview she dropped yesterday:
(T)here will be an empty seat at the table where Lisa from Temecula used to raise hell, among other fan-favorite-shaped holes in the door of Studio 8H. Because when executive producer Lorne Michaels giveth, he also taketh away, and in order for SNL to make way for new cast members, some familiar faces had to go.
The show has always brought people in from different ages and different generations, and it’s how it revives itself,” Lorne told Entertainment Tonight on the Emmys red carpet last month. “It’s always hard when people leave, but there’s a time for that.” Though that might depend on who you’re asking, and whether they thought it was their time or not.
Three-season alum Devon Walker was the first departure announced on Aug. 25. He was followed out the door by Emil Wakim after just one season, Michael Longfellow after three (plus rumors he might be in the running for Weekend Update anchor) and Heidi Gardner after eight. Then, more than two weeks after it seemed the exodus was over, seven-year veteran Ego Nwodim announced her decision to leave, noting on Instagram Stories that “the hardest part of a great party is knowing when to say goodnight.”
It’s hard not to notice the optics that these moves, along with those of writers such as the pioneering Celeste Yim–the show’s first out trans contributor–seemed to convey. And a glance at the list of newcomers would seem to underscore that uncomfortable truth. There’s an awful lot of white men floating around these environs.
Maybe that’s why the choice to kick this second half-century off as host was none other than the polarizing personality that ended the first, Bad Bunny, whose presence amidst the growing controversy of his mainland U.S.-less tour and his naming as halftime entertainment for Super Bowl 60 was an unexpected opportunity to seem like the show was still as progressive and upstart as it once was. But the presence of Bunny, who as AV CLUB’s Jesse Hassenger noted in this morning’s review was the first Saturday Night Live guest officially booked on a season finale to then be booked on the following season’s premiere, merely served as a way for the show to further focus on rising star Marcello Hernandez, who pairs with Bunny as a tag-team as well as, I suppose, rice and beans. I can’t help but vigorously nod in agreement with this Hassenger barb: Just what the 2020s need: a new Timberlake ‘n Fallon duo.
Beyond that, the balance of what I saw seemed redundant and uninspired. Naturally, James Austin Johnson’s raspy Trump popped up to remind all that “Daddy’s watching” during the cold open, only in light of the ludicrous omnipresence and considerably larger girth of the actual farter-in-chief Johnson now seems to be physically less spot on than ever. I was disappointed that the “role” of Pete Hegseth went not to a stunt cast opportunity that we’ve seen in previous years–several keen online pundits pointed out the amazing similarity Timothy Olyphant has to the Tony Robbins of this adminstration–and instead got WEEKEND UPDATE’s Colin Jost in an understated intrepretation. 
The JEOPARDY! sketch that has historically been a show staple seemed a lot blander with Andrew Dismuskes (last season’s underwhelming choice to lampoon Hegseth) as Ken Jennings; no Will Ferrell-cum-Trebek anywhere in sight. And while I don’t necessarily mind the adorable Sarah Sherman and Chloe Fineman in appropriate doses, the fact they were cast in back-to-back sketches as the two female protagonists points glaringly to how much of a void not having the comic chops of Gardner and Nwodim around has been created.
I reckon that could be why the choice as host for the ACTUAL golden anniversary broadcast this coming week–October 11th–is the versatile and legendary Amy Poehler, who if nothing else might take some of the heavy lifting off of others and perhaps elevate the promising Padilla–whom Hassenger specifically called out as one of last night’s high points-– or the intriguing newbie Veronika Slowikowska, who DEADLINE’s Matt Grober reminded was perhaps underutilized in a live sketch but fared better in last night’s lone filmed segment, the on-target ChatGPTio spoot. 
Yeah, I’ll be watching, ‘cuz I’m a creature of habit and my social life and stamina these days is at an all-time nadir. But Maybe next week I won’t have to watch in three separate installments after being lulled to sleep on two separate occasions. My second fifty years isn’t all that outstanding either.
Until next time…
1 thought on “SNL Shows The Second 50 Years Aren’t As Rewarding. Don’t I Know It.”
My mancard was affected 41 years ago when someone wanted to watch Madonna be Like a Virgin for the very first time when Wheel of Fortune of whatever was on that Friday night at 7;:30PM. Being a 50 year game show fan, you can get behind that.