TVSquad

People have been complaining that they're aren't enough cast members on Saturday Night Live now. Amy Poehler left after having her baby, and they're aren't many blacks on the show either (Fred Armisen is playing President-Elect Barack Obama and Kenan Thompson usually plays the other parts, even the female ones). But now executive producer Lorne Michaels has taken the first step in correcting some of those problems.

NBC will announce today that they are adding two new performers to the regular cast. One of them, Abby Elliot, is the daughter of ex-SNL cast member/Get A Life star/David Letterman regular Chris Elliot. The other is comedienne Michaela Watkins, from The Groundlings. I'm not sure if people still use the word "comedienne," but I like it.

Now we have to see if the show's ratings surge continues. The election is now over and the big draws (Tina Fey as Sarah Palin and the debate sketches) will stop.

When I watched the Nancy Pelosi/President Bush/Barney Frank bailout sketch on last Saturday's Saturday Night Live, I had no idea that one of the couples featured in the sketch (played by Darrell Hammond and Casey Wilson) was actually based on a real-life couple, and now that couple is angry at how they were portrayed. And by "portrayed" I mean that SNL putting up the words "People That Should Be Shot" on the screen while the couple was talking.

NBC has edited the segment (which you can see at the link above) so that the words no longer appear on the screen. In fact, in this new edited version, you can actually hear the audience laugh at the on-screen joke, even though nothing appears there now.

In what can only be labeled as the "shock of the decade," Richard Huff of the New York Daily News has reported that Tina Fey will return to Saturday Night Live tonight to play Sarah Palin, the Republican vice presidential nominee.

I've gotta tell ya, as far as the surprise factor is concerned, this ranks right up there with fall of the Berlin Wall and the Challenger explosion. I mean, Fey looks nothing like Palin. That's especially true when she's wearing her glasses; I can't seem to see any resemblance at all between the two at all in that case.

But I guess Lorne Michaels thought that Fey was the best person for the job, and asked her to take some time from knocking out 30 Rock episodes to play this woman. Maybe she'll be able to pull off the impression, though I can't imagine how.

Have you been watching The Line, the online summer series from Saturday Night Live cast members Seth Meyers, Bill Hader, and Jason Sudeikis? Well, then you might already be familiar with the newest addition to the NBC late night show.

The new guy is Bobby Moynihan, who costars in the online series (about two obsessed science fiction fans waiting in line to see a popular space movie). Others might know Moynihan from his years with the Upright Citizens Brigade Theater, including his improv work on ASSSSCAT (recently with this guy).

So I've been back from LA for a couple of days, watching Rich and Keith file frantic reports from Comic-Con. It just makes me shake my head in sympathy. Though CC is a different animal from the TCAs, in both structure and in sheer volume of people and activities, I still know exactly how they feel. It all starts to feel like a blur after awhile -- panels, reporter scrums, parties, meeting your favorite (and not-so-favorite) TV stars... When you get back to "normal life," it almost feels like it never happened.

Anyway, now that I have a day or two to reflect, I took a cue from our friends at AOL and came up with a list of things I learned on this press tour. But this list will involve both the network-related things I learned with what I learned about celebrities, my fellow critics, and myself.

Taking a cue from ABC, NBC had Jay Leno pose as a reporter and ask NBC's two-headed entertainment chief, Ben Silverman and Marc Graboff, about when Leno would be leaving and when Conan would be starting. Only, instead of just wearing a baseball cap like Kimmel did, Leno donned a bald cap and beard to make him seem extra stealthy.

Some of the "funny" lines are after the jump, but here's the gist of the news: Leno's last day on the Tonight show will be on May 29, with Conan O'Brien taking over the following Monday, June 1. Conan will do his last Late Night sometime during the first quarter, according to Graboff and Silverman, and Jimmy Fallon will take over the timeslot at an undetermined time during either March or April (that's after starting online, as Lorne Michaels announced yesterday). No word on what will play in Conan's 12:30 slot in the interim period.

Just wanted to post a quick report about yesterday's late-afternoon Saturday Night Live panel. On the panel was (new TCA Career Achievement award winner) Lorne Michaels, Weekend Update anchor and co-head-writer Seth Meyers, and cast members Fred Armisen, Andy Samberg, Jason Sudeikis, Kristin Wiig, Will Forte, and Casey Wilson.

Given the comedy star power on stage, the panel was strangely unfunny. That's probably because Michaels answered most of the questions. Anyway, two pieces of news came out of this panel:

• SNL will run live 30-minute Thursday election specials in primetime starting October 9 and running until the election. The specials will feature Weekend Update but may also have sketches. There will also be a primetime "Presidential Bash" episode the night before the election.
• Michaels mentioned that Jimmy Fallon will air his show online for "five or six months" before it airs in Conan O'Brien's old timeslot, in order to give it a headstart in finding its creative legs. "We learned with Conan how brutal it was to find a show when it was on the air," he said.

Tonight, the members of the Television Critics Association (including me) gathered at the Beverly Hilton to give out its annual awards. The membership voted on the awards in the month leading up to the press tour; we were given a number of candidates to choose from in various categories. The membership was also asked to choose recipients for an individual Career Achievement award and the Heritage Award, which recognizes a past show that had a big impact artistically and on the industry.

The members didn't reach back too far for the Heritage Award: it was given to The Wire. As for current shows, the members gave Mad Men a bushel of awards: Program of the Year, Outstanding New Program, and Outstanding Achievement in Drama. 30 Rock won for Outstanding Achievement in Comedy, and Tina Fey won the Individual Achievement in Comedy award for her performance. John Adams won the mini-series award; its star, Paul Giamatti, won the Individual Achievement in Drama award. Lorne Michaels of Saturday Night Live received the Career Achievement award.

A complete list of winners is after the jump.

Time's annual list of the 100 Most Influential People in the World is out, and for the third year in the row I just missed making the list (last year I was 103, this year I'm at 102, so I'm getting better!). The list is broken down into five different categories: Leaders & Revolutionaries, Heroes & Pioneers, Scientists & Thinkers, Artists & Entertainers, and Builders & Titans. This year, Miley Cyrus, Hannah Montana herself, is #59. And the weird thing is, it's under the Scientists & Thinkers category.

OK, that's not true (she's under Artists & Entertainers), but it got me thinking that there must really be a shortage of influential people in the world today.

That's the idea from Matthew Gilbert over at Boston.com: reduce the length of Saturday Night Live from 90 minutes to 60 minutes.

Would it help the show? We all know that the weakest part of the show seems to be that last half hour, when the lame sketches air. Regardless of what many people say about the current SNL (including me), there's still a lot of talent on the show and there's a lot of good, funny stuff that comes from it. Unfortunately, all the funny stuff doesn't come from the same episode. I'd say there's usually two really good sketches in an episode (including "Weekend Update"), a couple of "oh, this is a good idea but not for a sketch this long" segments, and several "how did this make it pass the writers room?" disasters. Maybe cutting the show down to an hour, while not perfect, would make the good parts stand out more and really get the show lean and mean again.

In today's Washington Post, Saturday Night Live kingpin Lorne Michaels defended his choice of Fred Armisen to play Barack Obama, starting with last week's episode. After the much-publicized search for an Obama impersonator (or Fauxbama, as some are calling it), Michaels decided on Armisen, who is of white and Asian origin. Armisen, who's talented enough to do excellent imitations of people ranging from Prince to Iranian leader Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, did a credible job playing Obama, a man who is somewhat hard to pin down, imitation-wise.

But some critics, including the Chicago Tribune's Maureen Ryan, have very bluntly wondered why an African-American didn't play Obama. "They couldn't find an African-American performer who was funny enough to play the junior senator from Illinois? They couldn't find one in New York? Not anywhere in the country? Really?" wrote Ryan on her Tribune blog.

We told you recently about Saturday Night Live's first new episode after the writers strike. The show will return this Saturday with host Tina Fey and musical guest Carrie Underwood. Now comes word that Maya Rudolph won't be on the show this weekend.

Rudolph still doesn't have a contract with the show. She almost left before this season started, but decided to come back. It now looks like that was only a temporary thing until they could get a contract hammered out. Producer Lorne Michaels says "I'm going to keep calling her until she changes her number," so the show wants her back. For the time being, her slot will be filled with Upright Citizen's Brigade troupe member Casey Wilson.

In other SNL news, the show will announce later this week who exactly is going to play Barack Obama in sketches. It won't necessarily be someone who is in the current cast. Michaels is also looking outside the show for someone to play the Democratic Presidential candidate.

I went to the UCB Theatre in New York on Sunday night to see their signature show, "ASSSSCAT." It was side-splittingly funny as usual; the group last night featured UCB founder and SNLer Amy Poehler, Jack McBrayer and John Lutz from 30 Rock, Paul Scheer and Rob Huebel from Human Giant, among others, and the guest monologist was Samm Levine (Freaks and Geeks). I had a fantastic time.

But I kind of wish I was at the theater about 20 hours before that, when the entire cast of SNL put on a makeshift version of their show, hosted by Michael Cera (we mentioned this show when it was announced last week). Fortunately, The New York Times was there, and they not only have an article about the event, but a nice slide show as well.

NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams has two gigs this week: hosting the nightly news show and preparing to host Saturday Night Live this weekend, rehearsing and helping to write some segments. Some people say he's blurring the line between news and entertainment, but I'm looking forward to seeing how he does. And he's keeping a blog of how the week is going so far.

The Daily Nightly is one of the better network news blogs anyway, but these entries show Williams' funny side. After working one night, he actually had to go to 30 Rock and join the writers for their all-night writing session.

Sometimes, when it's too rainy outside to go anywhere and the air is full of a sense of doom and gloom, all you want is to just hole up indoors and watch hours and hours and hours of nonstop Canadian sketch comedy and cross-dressing. Hey, I can't possibly be the only one that feels that way, because otherwise, the Kids in the Hall complete series megaset wouldn't have been made. I had a full rainy week to lounge around with this lovely collection and we got to know each other pretty well. It's a real sweetheart, to be sure... A real cross-dressing, head-crushing, fact-sharing, cabbage-headin' sweetheart.