Lorne Michaels Promised ‘SNL’ Shake-up But Doubled Down on Same Tired Formula
With Saturday Night Live’s 50th season in the rear-view mirror, Puck’s Matt Belloni asked producer Lorne Michaels, “Are you now going to shake things up?”
“Yes,” was Michaels’ response, although that was more in reference to rethinking the cast. So Belloni followed up: “Do you feel pressure to reinvent this season?”
“Yeah, for sure,” Michaels promised.
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But to the surprise of no one who’s watched the show for the past decade or so, Saturday Night Live did not reinvent itself on the Season 51 premiere. In fact, it couldn’t have adhered more closely to the tired blueprint that SNL has followed for years. Does this rundown of the show’s first hour sound familiar?
- Donald Trump cold open
- Host monologue
- Game show parody
- Fake commercial
- Sketch with people sitting around a table in a restaurant
- Another sketch with people sitting around a table in a restaurant
- Musical number
- Weekend Update with a desk piece showcasing a new cast member
The patented SNL cookie-cutter got a workout last night. But for true lack of imagination, check out the back-to-back “people sitting around in a restaurant” sketches. Not only did the sets feel strangely similar, but both sketches had almost identical seating charts. Sarah Sherman, Chloe Fineman and Bad Bunny occupied the left-to-right chairs in the initial sketch…
While Sherman, Fineman and Bad Bunny occupied the exact same seats in the sketch that came immediately after.
Sorry, new cast members looking to make their SNL debut — Michaels barely bothered to change the tablecloth, much less the comedians occupying the stage.
The Atlantic published a thinkpiece last week about “one big change” coming to SNL this year. That’s a move toward short-form, online-style comedy, suggested by recent hires of TikTok and podcast stars. “The show’s freshest players look to be a more internet-savvy crowd than the veterans around them,” noted the article.
The observation rings true, but what good is hiring comics who are great at two-minute-or-less online weirdness, only to shoehorn them into the same format the show’s been trotting out since the Dana Carvey/Phil Hartman days? As usual, the show’s only glimpse at hilariously oddball comedy came at the very end of the show, thanks to the El Chavo Del Ocho sketch.
Does it 100 percent work? Nope, but it’s gloriously bizarre, the kind of “What the hell was that?” sketch that fans will forward to friends for weeks to come. It was also the night’s best vehicle for Bad Bunny, a naturally gifted physical comedian who struggled with the verbal punchlines of the show’s leadoff Jeopardy sketch. And can you ever go wrong with a bit that features “And Kenan Thompson as Mr. Stomach”?
More of this, please, and fire the next writer who pitches a Jeopardy sketch — it’s not an exaggeration to say that between Celebrity Jeopardy, Black Jeopardy, Rock and Roll Jeopardy and plain ol’ Jeopardy, there have been 50 of them. Until then, there’s no reason to believe promises of “reinvention” or “shake-ups” for the foreseeable future.
