SNL season 41: End of the slump?

When SNL started their 41st season last October, I wasn't particularly excited by the lineup for the season premiere; Miley Cyrus doing double-duty as host and musical guest wasn't exactly the worst way to start the year, but her previous show was only two years before, and not a particularly strong one, at least writing-wise. What was more ominous was that there were no cast changes aside from the addition of another white male stand-up as a featured player, and the writing staff turnover fit the same pattern as in previous years (the long-tenured writers stay, the newbies are the first on the chopping block).

I'm not going to pretend this season of SNL was one of the series' greatest years, but what the last twenty-one shows have demonstrated is that the current group of writers and performers is capable of getting the balance right. Letting Donald Trump host the show in November was a mistake (and I suspect there are many at the show who feel the same), but the shows hosted by Tracy Morgan and Larry David were SNL's strongest efforts in years, and even weaker outings by Russell Crowe and Drake felt more like the writing was affected by the host's weaknesses (the former) or that the material just didn't connect (the latter), as opposed to the pandering I criticized the show for doing in seasons 39 and 40.

I won't go too far into detail about the elements that worked and didn't work this season, but I will definitely single out Kate McKinnon, Chris Kelly and Sarah Schneider for their continued excellent take on Hillary Clinton (McKinnon's is now the definitive impression). Vanessa Bayer made an incredible comeback this year ("Santa Baby" unleashed one of her most unsettling performances), and Cecily Strong returned to her full power as a member of the ensemble. There were still a few questionable sketches throughout the year ("Good Morning Song" marred the otherwise excellent Tracy Morgan show with a questionable gay predator punchline), but there seems to be more meat in the writing this year.

Colin Jost and Michael Che continued their turnaround of Weekend Update; it is now the most consistently funny and surprising part of the show, thanks in no small part to increased collaboration between the anchors and writers, and the efforts of segment producer Dennis McNicholas. Jost also stepped down as head writer prior to the start of the season, which allows him to put his focus on Update; while it is unclear as to what extent Jost's influence affected the quality of the show over the previous seasons, but this year's writing seems less beholden to recurring characters or attempts at new ones.

I used to think the show needed a huge shake-up to get it out of the holding pattern of mediocrity it was in for the past few seasons. I'm beginning to think that all it needs is a slight bit of work over the summer to trim some of the bloat.

Giving up on SNL

I've been watching SNL regularly for about 20 years.  I still have my original tapes from when I first started recording the show back in March 1994; in fact, I can tell you that the first episode I taped was a rerun of the show with John Malkovich and Billy Joel.  I've stuck with the show through that horrible season with Janeane Garofalo.  I've seen the historically bad years that almost got the show cancelled.  I've sat through that godawful 10 minute sketch with the sub at the bottom of the ocean.  None of these low points has made me want to give up on the show as much as this current season has.  

Last month, I wrote that I mainly watch the show out of a routine I can no longer justify to myself.  I was originally going to pack it in at that point, but held out hope that the next four shows would show some flicker of life that's been noticeably absent this year.  That would not be the case.

Josh Hutcherson was dull.  Paul Rudd had cameos and a Bill Brasky sketch, but weak writing pretty much everywhere else.  John Goodman's long-overdue return to SNL had more tepid writing, plus a sketch starring Sylvester Stallone and Robert DeNiro that felt like a rejected script from a bad Bob Hope special; the kind of sketch that SNL would make fun of when it spoofed bad variety shows.

The Jimmy Fallon show that aired last night was a bit more fun than the show's been in a while: Fallon has come a long way since he was the messy-haired new kid 15 years ago, and his collaborations with Justin Timberlake guaranteed several fan favorites would be trotted out.  That said, so much of the show felt like pandering: Paula Pell's Dancing Mascot sketches doesn't do much for me (it just feels too by-the-numbers and obligatory), and the cameos by Paul McCartney, Madonna, Barry Gibb and Michael Bloomberg felt like they were intended to distract from how lifeless the writing is on the show.  The episode came off as self-congratulatory towards Lorne Michaels' takeover of NBC late night.; an extended commercial for The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon, if you will.

It's not that the show is actually terrible: a truly bad year would at least be interesting.  Yet, more than ever this season, it feels like the show's on auto-pilot.  There's no need for the show to try anymore; it's one of the few relative successes NBC has left, so there's no impending cancellation to force the show to correct course.

Sketch comedy shows by their very nature are uneven, and even SNL's best seasons have had their dud shows.  This season feels different; I don't think "mediocre" is the right word, though, because even something mediocre can have an appreciable effort behind it.  The six new faces added to the show in the wake of the recent departures of Bill Hader, Fred Armisen and Jason Sudeikis just feel purely cosmetic; only a mask to cover stagnant and lazy writing.

The cast has too much potential that's not being used properly.  Taran Killam and Kate McKinnon are in a class by themselves on the show, and could potentially carry a new era of the show, but they're weighed down by so many people who have overstayed their welcome.  The move to make Kenan Thompson the cast anchor (a la Hader or Sudeikis) is baffling; Thompson doesn't have the range to pull off that role in the cast, and he's already demonstrated everything he's capable of as a performer years ago.

The real dead weight is in the writers' room.  There are 23 writers on staff this year, including Lorne Michaels, who always gets a credit.  Steve Higgins and Paula Pell have been with the show since the last big changeover in 1995 (Pell is part-time); their tenure with the show is longer than those of the original writers who were still with the show before Michaels cleaned house.  James Anderson has been around since 2000; he and frequent collaborator Kent Sublette seem to be the writing staff's equivalent of Kenan Thompson, in that they recycle their bag of tricks and that their output tends to annoy more than amuse.  There are a handful of prolific and talented newer writers (Zach Kanin, Sarah Schneider and Chris Kelly) and a fair bit of turnover in the staff over the last five years: the only trouble with this is that it's the newer writers that leave, while the veterans stick around and churn out the same old material.

I need a break from the show.  I've come to the conclusion that I'm getting too frustrated by SNL this season to justify watching live anymore; until some non-superficial changes are made to the creative side of the show, I'm not going to be tuning in.  Whatever's worth checking out will be on the internet the next day (unless it has a music clearance issue).  

My original plan was to finish the 1982-83 season reviews, but I think I'm going to take a break from those as well.  I'll try to resume those in a few months.

SNL Post-Mortem: 10/12/03: Bruce Willis / Katy Perry

One of SNL's current booking strategies seems to be to grab random celebrities who've only hosted the show once many years before.  Tonight's host, Bruce Willis, last appeared on the show's season premiere in 1989.  Willis' musical guest this time around was Katy Perry, whose performance of "Roar" with an animal-suited band was one of the oddest things on this week's show.

Willis' performances were off all night and sloppy compared to his first show; while Perry markedly improved over her 2010 songs, despite a iffy audio mix.  Even iffier was the writing, which was weaker than the previous two shows, with too many of the sketches going nowhere beyond the reveal of the main joke.  

The Lady Gaga Show was the latest dressing on one of SNL's favorite crutches: the talk show sketch.  Besides not being particularly funny, the sketch was a performance misfire for Vanessa Bayer, whose delivery as Gaga seemed too similar to her bar mitzvah boy character Jacob.    

More frustrating was the attempt to recur two one-off sketches from last year; the resurrection of Bobby Moynihan's kittycat-fixated astronaut Kirby was a beat-for-beat remake of a sketch that aired almost exactly a year ago, while Taran Killam's Eddie character predictably hectored a character played by the host over a mispronounced word.  Perhaps the laziest piece of writing was Penelope Cruz (Kate McKinnon) mispronouncing hair product chemicals in Gaga Show, a routine cribbed from a sketch in McKinnon's debut show in April 2012.

There were handful of bright spots: Boy Dance Party got a great reaction from the audience and is likely to be SNL's latest meme-generator, while the Good Neighbor guys' "Sigma" short was well constructed, with several good jokes.  Centauri Vodka had the most interesting and classically funny premise of the night, as well as giving two of the season's least-used castmembers (John Milheiser and Nasim Pedrad) some much-needed airtime.  Brooks Wheelan also managed to show some promise in a Weekend Update desk segment, though Cecily Strong's awkward WU performance felt like a backward step from last week's signs of improvement.

I don't know how the hierarchy at SNL currently works regarding who gets their material on air, or how big a part in the sketch writing process the cast have, but over the last few seasons, I've noticed it's the veteran writers that stick around while the newer hires come and go.  I get the feeling that the writers with the most influence are the ones who are also holding the show back.  It's a shame, really, because the cast has been quite good in the last couple of seasons; Bobby Moynihan is particularly reliable for saving sketches.  However, the show is only as good as its writing, and I have a feeling that even the celebrated original cast or '86-90 ensemble would have trouble salvaging some of tonight's material.

Next week is a dark week for the show, which will return live on October 26 with Edward Norton and Janelle Monae.  I will continue my Classic SNL reviews that week with the next show from 1982-83 (Robert Blake / Kenny Loggins).

SNL Post-mortem: 09/28/13: Tina Fey / Arcade Fire

Saturday Night Live began its 39th season with a bit more media attention than usual: six new featured players were added to pad out a cast that lost three of its key players over the summer, and last year's rookie breakout Cecily Strong was added to Weekend Update to prepare for anchor Seth Meyers' departure for his own Late Night show mid-season.  In short, another "transition year" for a show that seems to be in the throes of a particularly long and gradual "transition year".

I've written about this before, but the season premiere is not really the best place to judge how the season as a whole will go.  The first few shows in September and October have the cast and writers slowly settling back into their routines, and they largely play it safe until the group dynamic is re-established.  Selecting TIna Fey as a host was a smart choice, though I suspect, like with Amy Poehler three years ago, the producers were having a little trouble finalizing that slot as the announcement came less than three weeks before air.  Fey also didn't really have anything to promote aside from being a successful alumna.  

Her fourth gig as host (and first since appearing while 6 months pregnant in May 2011) was welcome, though: with Fey, it feels like there's an extra member in the cast rather than someone being shoehorned into sketches.  

It did feel like the show was struggling to come up with content.  The influx of new players served as the basis for two whole segments: the monologue, and a game show where Tina Fey had to guess whether someone was a new featured player or a member of Arcade Fire.  Both of these segments were actually pretty funny, but SNL usually handles their new cast influxes a bit more succinctly than this (Side note: my all-time favorite way of introducing new players was 1986's premiere, which didn't show a member of its mostly-new cast on-camera before the first commercial break).  

On the downside, there were a few thin premises (the airport sketch, the PBS movie show), and the recurring characters (Drunk Uncle and the Ex-Porn Stars) didn't have their best outings.  I suspect that this was less of a problem than it would have been without Fey, who knows how to play the weaker bits.  While the Aaron Paul cameos were welcome and appropriate considering the event-level finale of Breaking Bad the next night, by the time of his third appearance they began to feel like a crutch.

Cecily Strong made her debut as a Weekend Update co-anchor.  Last season, she made a quick impression with characters like "The Girl You Wish You Haven't Started A Conversation With At A Party", and felt like a veteran after only a few shows.  Her first time at the desk showed promise, but was underwhelming: she seems to be trying to force herself into the Seth Meyers sarcastic delivery mold, and seemed to have an absence of the gravitas that Jane Curtin or Fey herself had at the desk.  I hope she eventually grows into her new role and finds a way to make the desk her own, rather than continue to dish out more of the same style of humor that Seth Meyers has been serving on WU since 2006.

The large number of people in the cast (and tendency toward longer openings, monologues and Weekend Update) means that there are a lot of people competing for airtime, and because the show only has so much space, some will inevitably get shut out some weeks.  Of the new hires, Kyle Mooney and Noel Wells seemed to make the strongest impressions tonight.  Mooney got an Update feature for his inaugural show with his hack stand-up character Bruce Chandling, and Wells led a fake promo for HBO's Girls with her Lena Dunham impression.  Writer-turned-player Mike O'Brien also had a feature playing an old-timey used car salesman character, but Fey was the one who carried the sketch.  Beck Bennett ended up relagated to support roles, while John Milheiser and Brooks Wheelan only had bit parts.  It remains to be seen how the male players will distinguish themselves from each other.

The size of the cast will only serve to make it tougher for some veterans to get airtime: Nasim Pedrad, now in her fifth season, seems to appear on the show significantly less each passing year, and while Jay Pharoah's Obama ensures his spot in the cast, he was nowhere to be seen after the opening montage.  Other than these two, the remaining cast seems to be gelling as a group, with Bobby Moynihan, Taran Killam, Vanessa Bayer, Aidy Bryant and Kate McKinnon settling into clear roles in the cast.  Curiously, it feels like they're grooming Kenan Thompson to take some of the Bill Hader and Jason Sudiekis roles, as his game show emcee and PBS host characters would have been portrayed by either of the two departed players.

I was disappointed that Tim Robinson was swapped out of the cast and into the writer's room for this year, essentially switching places with Mike O'Brien.  Robinson may not have had as stellar a year as Cecily Strong, but he was responsible for some of last year's more memorable sketches ("Z-Shirts" and "Roundball Rock").  O'Brien seems to fill a similar niche in the roles he plays, but he's not as strong a performer as Robinson, nor does he quite have his strong comedic sensibility.

I'm still on the fence about the Arcade Fire performances: I do give them credit for always trying to present themselves with an interesting visual, but I wasn't feeling either of their songs tonight.  I suspect they'll grow on me in the context of the album, though.   For me, their best appearance was backing up Mick Jagger on "The Last Time" if only for the sheer joy exuding from their faces (Sarah Neufeld had a huge grin on hers all throughout).

Next week: Miley Cyrus is the host and musical guest.  Hope she keeps her tongue in.

SNL Season 38: End of an era

Last year, Saturday Night Live said goodbye to Kristen Wiig and Andy Samberg, two of the major performers on the show's past couple of seasons.  Samberg and his cohorts from The Lonely Island brought the show into the viral media age with their Digital Shorts, and for better or worse, Wiig was the show's dominant performer.  The loss of the show's most recognizable stars seemed to portend an uncertain time in SNL's history, but despite the hiring of a few new faces and the dismissal of another player (Abby Elliott), the 2012-13 season didn't seem to have a feeling that there was a void the show was desperately trying to fill.  A lot of the credit for this belongs to the new performers hired as featured players, particularly Cecily Strong; she established her place on the show quickly and firmly, in a way not seen since Amy Poehler.  Kate McKinnon (a late-season addition for 2011-12), was also fairly prominent, owing to having similar strengths as the departed Wiig.  While Aidy Bryant and Tim Robinson are still waiting for their breakouts, both show promise and distinct sensibilities that the show could mine to its benefit.

I do feel the long tenures of some players like Seth Meyers, Fred Armisen and Kenan Thompson tend to hold the show from effectively developing some of the new cast, but in three seasons alone, Taran Killam seems ready to take over as SNL's alpha male next season.  Jason Sudeikis and Bill Hader provided a solid backbone for this season.  Bobby Moynihan had the best year of his tenure, Vanessa Bayer rebounded from a confidence drop that plagued her throughout 2011-12, and Jay Pharoah taking over the Obama impression helped establish his place in the cast.  Only Nasim Pedrad feels particularly misused, mainly stuck with "little kid" and "old lady" roles.

The writing staff was mostly stable this year.  There were a few departures: Christine Nangle and Weekend Update writer Jessica Conrad did not come back this season, and John Mulaney joined Paula Pell as a part-time contributor.  One writer returned to the show after a seven-year absence (Joe Kelly, most recently a writer/producer for How I Met Your Mother).  Neil Casey and Josh Patten joined the staff, and, beginning in February, a slew of guest writers were brought aboard for brief stints, including Chelsea Peretti, Cora Frazier, Michael Che, Edi Patterson, Monica Padrick and Kids In The Hall alum Kevin McDonald (Che was later added to the regular roster for the May shows).

The season was fairly uneven, though, with more pronounced highs and lows than SNL's experienced in a few years.  There were a greater number of outright duds this year (the Mountain Pass sketch from Louis CK comes to mind), yet the stumbles felt more like the show was losing its fear of failure that made the last couple of seasons a little too safe and antiseptic.  In a way, this actually came off as promising.  There were also enough flashes of inspiration, including the Mike O'Brien-penned short film "Sad Mouse" and two-part sketches like Tim Robinson's "Z Shirts" and Seth Meyers' "Darrell's House" that imbued this season with a freshness not seen in a while.

The show has always had castmembers come and go to varying levels of fanfare, but it seems that the big emotional farewell for a departing player has become de rigeur in recent years.  Phil Hartman's 1994 send-off featured the show's recurring characters performing a variant of "So Long, Farewell" from The Sound Of Music.  Will Ferrell's 2002 departure was marked by the cast (except for Tracy Morgan) speaking out-of-character about how he'll be missed.  What turned out to be Darrell Hammond's final show didn't have an explicit tribute, but the cameo-filled full-cast "Goodnight Saigon" performance felt uncharacteristically emotional to be just a random Will Ferrell sketch.  The Kristen Wiig "graduation ceremony" at the end of Mick Jagger's show last season seemed to outdo all these earlier goodbyes; despite Wiig being such a divisive castmember for a lot of fans, the emotional displays of from her colleagues made her swan song all the more moving.

I touched on the news of Bill Hader, Fred Armisen and Seth Meyers' departures from SNL in my last post.  Hader and Armisen both got their goodbyes last night; unlike Wiig, both performers chose to say their goodbyes in character.  Hader's farewell was one last Stefon appearance on Weekend Update, culminating in a pre-taped segment of Seth Meyers racing through New York to stop the club promoter's wedding to Anderson Cooper a la The Graduate.  Armisen used the show's 10-to-1 to perform an understated farewell tune as his Thatcherite punk character Ian Rubbish, with Hader, Killam and Sudeikis as the Bizarros, and cameos by Aimee Mann, Michael Penn, J. Mascis, Kim Gordon, Sex Pistol Steve Jones, and Armisen's Portlandia collaborator Carrie Brownstein.   SNL is not a show that often features genuine emotion very often: when it does, such as last night, the results are amazing and devastating.

With the departures of Hader and Armisen, Meyers' impending move to the Late Night desk, and the rumored exit of Jason Sudiekis, last night's show truly felt like the end of an era for Saturday Night Live.  Even if Meyers sticks around to ease the transition to the next Weekend Update anchor and head writer, he will seem more like a vestige of a prior version of SNL than a full-fledged member of the new guard.