TVSquad

In before the usual "they should call it Saturday Night Dead!" crap...

The fact is, last season of SNL was the strongest they've had in a long time. Despite losing Amy Poehler, they've got some amazing talent in Kristen Wiig, Bill Hader, Will Forte, and the rest.

Yes, I'm going to miss Casey Wilson (though, admittedly, that's for more prurient reasons), and Michaela Watkins really shouldn't have been let go (her "Today Show" sketches with Wiig were fantastic), but I still have high hopes. The further we get from the Gilbert Gottfried/Denny Dillon year, the better :)

Reply

I think the environment might be changing to the extent that something like Saturday Night Live might be obsolete.

I've been watching on an off this past year and I can count on that almost every week that they are too slow on being able to comment on topical humor.

News breaks on Tuesday. Internet sites make fun of of it with-in 24 hours. The Daily Show and Colbert Report, Conan, Letterman, all get to make fun of it with-in 48 hours. And then 5 days later SNL gets to say something about it. The punch is kind of gone to anyone who hasn't been living under a rock.

News and information are moving faster, and so is the humor and pop-culture response to it. A weekly show on topical humor is just out-dated. Sadly.

Reply

The best episodes of late have been more of a credit to the hosts than to the writers or the cast. I'm thinking Anne Hathaway, Justin Timberlake, Neil Patrick Harris and, of course, Alec Baldwin.

Reply

It really does come down to the writing and that's where the show has failed for many years now.

I think the problem is a disconnect between the writers and the performers. In the best seasons of SNL you had performers who created their own charaters, wrote their own sketches or regularly teamed up with certain writers to help craft sketches. For many years now it seems that performers cannot create their own material or are not permitted to.

On the flip side, it seems like the writers have been marginalized. As a writer, there's little incentive to create the next great character/sketch when it's the cast member who gets all the publicity and the subsequent 2 picture deal at Paramount/Warners/Fox/etc. It seems like they have little incentive to truly collaborate with the performers.

I think that disconnect between the writers and performers has more to do with the "SNL system" than the talents (or lack thereof) of people involved.

Lorne Michaels runs the show like a dictatorship and has a long history of playing favorites with writers and performers.

For the show to succeed in the long run, Michaels needs to step aside and let a new showrunner come in to shake things up a bit.

Reply

There's a connection between the quality of the writing and the quality of the host. If the host is a good performer then the writers can come up with better material. If the hosts are weak then they'll drag down pretty much any material.

What I'd like to see is the show stripped down to the bare minimum. Do the show like it was done in the 70's with more of a gonzo style and feel of immediacy to it.

-Reduce the cast to seven or eight tops. Bring back the SNL locker room where the cast congregates between skits.

-Go minimalist with the sets. The focus of the show is the humor, not the production values.

-Remember that impressions don't have to be perfect. Does anyone remember Chevy Chase's Gerald Ford? Jimmy Carter didn't have a mustache but Dan Aykroyd did, but that didn't stop him.

-Don't stick to the same formula they've used for the last 25+ years (opening political skit, monologue with 50% chance of taking questions from the audience, commercial parody, skit, skit, musical guest, Weekend Update, skit, skit, musical guest, skit, closing). Mix it up a bit. Hell, mix it up a lot. If they've got a hot musical guest, open the show with that.

-Do some stuff that carries through an entire show, like the Larry the Lobster vote, the Shooting of Buckwheat and the Buck Henry Band-Aids after he got cut by Belushi's samurai sword.

-Go live outside the studio.

-Think outside the box. Wasn't there an episode where Chevy Chase was scheduled to guest-host, but couldn't make it to New York because of the weather? So they just had him on a TV monitor the whole time.

-Stop changing the script right up to the last minute so that all the performers end up having to look at cue cards for every line.

-Bring in real surprise guests, not just Alec Baldwin, Steve Martin or Dan Aykroyd in cameos. But work to make it a real surprise beucase word spreads fast in this Twitter age.

-If the host is weak, bring in an extra performer, like a stand-up comedian to fill some time.

-Bring back the surviving cast of the 1980/81 season for one episode, including Gilbert Gottfried and Denny Dillon and issue them all an apology for making them all sacrificial lambs. Don't forget that in 1975 they had the luxury of not airing weekly and got to make several adjustments that first season. (Muppets? George Coe?) The 1980 cast was expected to hit their stride right out of the gate and never had the opportunity to make any useful adjustments. (OK, this one is optional, but I think Gilbert Gottfried should guest host some day.)

Reply

Damn, I hit send too soon. This item should have read:

-If the host is weak, bring in an extra performer, like a stand-up comedian or variety act to fill some time. The mid 80's saw Penn & Teller, Joel Hodgson and a few others. Why not bring in some acts like Blue Man Group? I'm sure there are lots of acts on and off Broadway that could be very entertaining.

Reply

Lorne Michaels can say whatever he wants. The fact remains that two women were let go and two others were hired. ("Left concurrently" my ::ahem::) Given that even with Tina Fey's reign as Head Writer, SNL is still considered to be a boys' club, it's going to look bad no matter how he tries to spin it.

Other than that, Elf brings up so many good points that rehashing them would be a waste.

Reply

I'll always love SNL, and I'll continue watching and ignoring the bad sketches. But what I wonder is, why don't these guys ever leave SNL on their own. The girls go off to have careers, but these guys are just hanging around until they get fired.

Reply

Including this new season, SNL currently has 3 more seasons on its NBC contract, ending in May 2012. Will it be back for the 2012 election in the fall? Only time will tell.

I believe that NBC will continue SNL as long as Lorne Michaels is alive, healthy and wants to do it. It continues to churn out big stars (and the rights to all their SNL characters and their first few movies), although nowadays its competing with The Daily Show for talent.

The real question, in the short term, is do they have a future huge movie star aboard right now, like the young Adam Sandler and Will Ferrell they once had? Andy Samberg?

Reply