We’re here at the end of another season of “Saturday Night Live,” and just like last season, there are changes afoot. This will be Bill Hader’s last show. Seth Meyers will leave the show at the end of the calendar year in order to take over the post-“The Tonight Show” slot. Both Fred Armisen and Jason Sudeikis are rumored to also be leaving? To which I say: awesome. That doesn’t take away anything from what these four have brought to the table. But change is the lifeblood of the show, and no single person is ever truly irreplaceable. In fact, having Meyers leave might be the shot in the arm this show really needs. While its easy to point to onscreen talent as the cause for any woes the show has had this season, it all boils down to the writing. If that’s not up to snuff, no amount of comedic talent in front of the camera can overcome that. If Meyers’ departure shakes up the writer’s room dynamic, and allows new voices to emerge, it might be just what the doctor ordered for the slightly ailing “SNL”.
And let’s be honest: it has been ailing, with only a few episodes this season being truly enjoyable and none reaching “all-time” status. But let’s be honest about something else: that really describes most seasons of the show. Every time you hear someone complain about “the seasons when the show was actually funny,” you’re really hearing someone with selective memory. So long as the show keeps its “old ways are best ways” mentality, there will never be another balls-to-the-wall strong season of the show again. You’ll get some great sketches, some decent shows, but mostly you’ll get retreads of established premises and failed attempts at introducing something new into the sketch comedy landscape. So long as the show keeps producing the show like the rules of it are fundamentally unalterable, this is how the show will always be.
The biggest upside to such a potential mass departure? An excuse to shake things up! Before last season, I offered up ten suggestions to improve the show. The one that’s easiest to implement in the face of such large turnover? Reinvent the way you think about the “cast” of the show. If everyone remaining came back next season, that’s still a great repertory from which to draw! But there’s a host of comedic talent in New York City that can be exploited depending on the needs of the show that particular week. They may not be as versatile as those on the show. But they are hungry, they have diverse perspectives, and they have diverse backgrounds as well. Think of the New York comedy scene the way England arranges its soccer leagues: “SNL” is the Premier League, and everything else is a feeder system. Is this system unwieldy? Heck yes. But it makes those repertory spots mean something, creates a new way of thinking about ensemble comedy, and keeps everyone involved hungry.
But enough about the future. Let’s focus on the present, with Ben Affleck joining the Five-Timers Club tonight with Kanye West returning as musical act. When Justin Timberlake joined the Five-Timers Club, there was a sketch featuring other members of the club that still might be going on. (MAN, that was long.) So look for lots of guest appearances tonight, not just because of Affleck’s ascendance but also because the season finale often features tons of surprise guests anyways.
Since this seems to confuse exactly one of you each week, let me once again explain: this will be a liveblog. I will recap each episode as they happen. The word “recap” appears above this because 1) as of 1:00 am tonight, that’s what this will be, and 2) that’s what every review of every episode on this site is. It’s kind of a HitFix thing. I’m not sure why this causes you so much turmoil every week, but I’m doing my best to ease your pain. (The rest of you? Feel free to hate on the grades in the comment as always. I spread that on my toast come Sunday morning.)
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