Getting Tina Fey back to appear as Sarah Palin wasn't the only big thing to happen to Lorne Michael's little show this week. The season premiere of Saturday Night Live netted the largest audience for a premiere since 2001. It was a 64% increase over last year's premiere. It was also its largest total audience since Al Gore and Phish were the host and musical guest in December 2002.It's just too bad that beyond the opening sketch the premiere itself wasn't any good. I won't go into the details of what specifically was and wasn't bad because Annie covered that pretty well. The problem is that when you take away the curiosity factor of Michael Phelps and the incredible buzz of Tina Fey's return, what are you left with?
My prediction is one of the biggest ratings drop offs in SNL history next week; nothing personal James Franco, who's set to host. Then all of us media types will spend the next several weeks predicting the demise of the show by taking the ratings drop out of context and absolutely not mentioning the massive ratings increase this episode saw. It's how we put food on the tables, you know.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
9-15-2008 @ 9:10AM
mosbutnotall said...
Do celebrities really get a lot of publicity for their other projects, publicity that can be measured monetarily, for being on SNL? They can hardly be doing it for the material since it's 99% utter rubbish.
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9-15-2008 @ 9:48AM
chadwick said...
It was funny. It seemed H. Clinton got poked fun of the most but that's only because we have known her forever. The rest of the show was a snoozer.
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9-15-2008 @ 10:31AM
MacGuffin said...
I agree: the opener was top rate.
But the rest of the show stunk.
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9-15-2008 @ 10:47AM
StillBash said...
You are left with a T-Mobile commercial. A really funny one but you have to ask yourself whether you are really tuning in to see commercials interrupted by fake commercials. Or vice versa. Really sad if you ask me.
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9-15-2008 @ 12:53PM
Derek said...
I still like the show, no matter how many articles and posts I've read about its impending demise or the even more bland 'this era sucks compared to that era' discussion. I'll keep watching 'till the bitter end, because it is a comedy show. I like comedy. I like the cast. The show isn't perfect, but it is one of the last vanguards of live comedy on tv. So give me a break and at least give some balanced coverage of the show.
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9-15-2008 @ 1:14PM
Liz said...
There were reports that Obama was going to appear on the show (later reports revealed that he did not appear due to the hurricane), which was actually the reason I made sure to watch. I think Obama's possible appearance may have had something to do with the spike in ratings...
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9-15-2008 @ 2:21PM
Jimmy said...
Doubtful. This is the first I've heard of it.
9-15-2008 @ 5:31PM
Oreo said...
Yes doubtfull because it didn't come out until close to show time. Plus there was a rumour before hand that McCain was even going to show up.
9-16-2008 @ 3:13PM
granmayo said...
After the opening, the show headed south.
I am glad to know I was not alone in thinking that.
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9-15-2008 @ 11:17PM
Seth said...
I think the reason for the spike was Michael Phelps himself and I too watched most of the awfully unfunny show waiting for Obama, not knowing that he had cancelled because of the hurricane.
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9-28-2008 @ 12:13PM
Riki said...
it was still funnier than MadTV, and that's saying a LOT because I used to love Mad-Tv, but all their people that were actually funny are gone..will Sasso, Aries Spears, Nicole Sullivan, Alex Borstein. Well, at least you still hear them on Family Guy occasionally.
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