For nearly 45 years, Saturday Night Live remains with its strong foothold in the comedy world. Even throughout the rocky course of its history, it retained its status as a reliable source for American satire. Though it's amazing that the show has endured for decades, audiences are observant regarding its change in quality over the years.
It remains debatable if SNL still deserves to run continuously. But should it keep going, it needs to consider several audience concerns to improve the show, particularly considering today’s taste in comedy and the complacency of certain sketches. And what continues to work for SNL should persist.
10 Needs To Stay The Same: The Cast Member System
The primary batch of SNL cast members are also called as “Not Ready for Prime Time Players,” a perfect way to label the show as a launching pad for comedians. While the first two seasons included a primary cast, the third season introduced a separate category for new cast additions.
New cast members are called “Featured Players.” Once they reach a certain level of recognition, they are promoted to “Repertory Players.” This cast ranking system is beneficial, even if new cast members tend to get overshadowed by the show’s mainstays.
9 Needs To Change: Bring In Innovative Musical Guests
One of the complaints of the latest seasons of SNL is that the musical performances were deemed to be the most forgettable parts of the episodes (with Billie Eilish, BTS and David Byrne as likely exceptions).
The musical guest spot mainly serves as an outlet for artists to promote their singles. So, the show makes safe choices by featuring trendy musical artists. They range from large pop artists performing forgettable songs to teen stars amusing the younger demographic. It would be better to put out the money on musical guests who give memorable performances.
8 Needs To Stay The Same: Less Recurring Sketches
One of the reasons why recent SNL episodes tend to be mediocre is the show’s reliance on recurring sketches and characters, making it feel formulaic, and mainly, it is the main cast that tends to have the most recurring segments. Remember the time when almost every Saturday had a “The Californians” sketch?
While it is amusing to see familiar sketches frequently, they tend to lose their freshness. Luckily, the present writers and cast stick with newer material that can stand out in one airing.
7 Needs To Change: More Comedians As Hosts
On the previous season, Saturday Night Live featured four comedians as hosts (three of which are previous cast members, and one was a writer). Even though they excelled in their parts (with Eddie Murphy being the best), there is a definite lack of comedians outside of SNL.
SNL is an outlet for comedians to be featured. The first host, after all, was George Carlin, and the show really benefits from these comedians and their material. It would be great to see a comedian host the first episode of each season.
6 Needs To Stay The Same: Prioritize Diversity
A necessary move by SNL has been to feature a more diverse cast, compared to past years of the show's run. This move was pushed by longtime cast member Kenan Thompson when he lamented on the lack of African-American women in the cast. Thus, it is gratifying that the show highlights talent like Leslie Jones, although she has now departed from the show.
In some ways, the upcoming cast is more diverse than ever, with the addition of African-American comedienne Punkie Johnson. But it will take continuous effort to feature diverse cast members on camera.
5 Needs To Change: Give More Screentime To Featured Players
A common observation about SNL featured players is that they have a discrete amount of screentime. Their parts often consist of background characters, extras, one-joke gags and several-seconds-long celebrity impressions. This, unfortunately, does not give them enough time to stand out and they often disappear into the background.
This is a waste since featured players are hired for their distinctive comedic talent. Fans hope the show creates some great material so that featured cast members can be better recognized.
4 Needs To Stay The Same: Weird Sketches
Saturday Night Live prides itself in being not only a comedy show that showcases political sketches and pop-culture spoofs, but also as an outlet for peculiar humor. Likewise, their creativity has been growing recently, with the likes of “Big Nick’s,” “Mattel Instagram Pitch” and “David S. Pumpkins” as prominent examples.
Sketches with weird concepts are perceived as some of the most memorable parts of each SNL episode. And usually, such sketches contain subtle commentary and underlying themes that fans can get behind. So, if SNL can be weird, make it weirder.
3 Needs To Change: More Impersonations
One skill required to be a good cast member is celebrity impressions. This is handy for executing political sketches and pop culture parodies. Lately, there has been a run of other guest celebrities doing the impersonations, instead of the main cast.
This is evident in the recent spoofs of the Democratic Presidential Election when the likes of Fred Armisen, Larry David, Maya Rudolph and Jason Sudeikis impersonated the presidential candidates. If the show wants to boast its talented cast, hand the reins deservedly to them.
2 Needs To Stay The Same: The Weekend Update
The current Weekend Update anchors, Michael Che and Colin Jost, have been praised for their rapport and substance when discussing current events. Their comedic news material finely lines up with other late-night news comedy shows, giving them leeway to jest any socio-political topic, personality or tidbit.
Che and Jost have captured the dynamic that Tina Fey, Amy Poehler and Seth Meyers had during their tenures. If they can maintain their grounded, satirical bite in their upcoming material, the duo will stand out as two of the best Weekend Update anchors to date.
1 Needs To Change: Take More Risks In The Satire
Granted, Saturday Night Live is made for a general demographic that is used to favorable humor. Thus, any attempts at risky satire are set aside for safe, one-joke material, explaining the recent forgettable episodes. While this is not a loss for SNL, it only places them in competition with other sketch shows, like A Black Lady Sketch Show, Drunk History and The Eric Andre Show.
Fans hope they are motivated to push for edgier material, rather than the usual “The president is a dummy” or “Kenan as Steve Harvey" standbys. The SNL audience deserves more subversive material in what is a subversive time for comedy.
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