5 Ways ‘Saturday Night Live’ Missed the Moment in Historic Season 50
There was no way SNL Season 50 could live up to the hype.
For the past three or four years (at least), Saturday Night Live has been treading water as it geared up for its historic golden anniversary, a landmark that no other comedy show has come close to realizing. Sure, the show was stuck in mediocre mode, but watch out when SNL blew off the doors for Season 50! There’d be four documentaries, Olympics cameos, an anniversary concert, books, commemorative T-shirts and a parade of the biggest comedy stars of the past half-century.
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But unfortunately — and inevitably — SNL failed to meet the moment. While oversized expectations meant the show was doomed to disappoint, SNL still managed to find multiple ways to screw up the biggest year in TV comedy history. Here are five ways Saturday Night Live missed its most significant moment…
Where Were the Classic Cast ?
At the beginning of Season 50, it appeared SNL was on to a great idea, bringing back classic cast to interact with current comedians, a past-meets-present approach that would celebrate SNL history all year long. Instead, we mostly got political stunt-casting, with Maya Rudolph as Kamala Harris, Andy Samberg as her doting husband Doug and Dana Carvey as a befuddled Joe Biden injecting life into the first four episodes, then disappearing after Harris lost.
Mostly disappeared, anyway — Carvey became a virtual cast member for the first half of the season before ghosting the anniversary show. Then we got Mike Myers doing his impression of Carvey’s Elon Musk impression, Adam Sandler popping in for buddy Chris Rock’s episode, and that was about it.
In other words, no Will Ferrell. No Bill Murray. No Tina Fey, Kristin Wiig or Amy Poehler. Where were Molly Shannon, Fred Armisen and Jane Curtin? Eddie Murphy? We couldn’t give up a few minutes of Andrew Dismukes for some homecoming appearances?
The Year’s Biggest Viral Moments Had Nothing to Do With Comedy
The past few seasons haven’t been great, but at least goofy sketches like Aimee Lou Woods’ hurt feelings after Sarah Sherman impersonated her with enormous prosthetic teeth.
The brouhaha surrounding those “controversies” proved SNL still has social currency, but not because the show makes us laugh.
Lorne Michaels’ Game of ‘Will He or Won’t He?’ Commanded Too Much Attention
As Michaels approached his 80th birthday, we endured years of speculation about when the man would finally retire. He promised three years ago that it would happen after the show hit its 50th anniversary — he just wanted to get to the big mid-year celebration, and then he’d ride off into the sunset.
Except now, he has no intention of doing so. “So as long as it’s important and I can be useful,” “Lorne! Retire, bitch!”
Trump’s Reelection Doomed Us to Four More Years of Lazy Cold Opens
James Austin Johnson does a brilliant impression of Trump — unfortunately. Michaels is convinced that America waits breathlessly to watch Johnson recreate whatever chaos the President stirred up the previous week, and so we get the same opening sketch, week after week after week.
It’s consistently the least funny, creatively sluggish part of the show.
The SNL50 Anniversary Show Was A Hot Mess
Guys, you had a little advance warning that this party was coming.
And yet, in the weeks leading up to the three-and-a-half-hour extravaganza, word kept leaking that no one knew what exactly the show was going to be. An all-star team of SNL luminaries gathered to write it, but all confessed they were rudderless.
“I can’t believe we’re doing the show tonight,” said Maya Rudolph, minutes before it was about to start.
“No dress rehearsal,” confessed Kristen Wiig.
You heard that right — a multi-hour show with dozens of stars didn’t bother to do one run-through before going live. And it showed, with great comedians woodenly reading lines off cards or missing their cues altogether. This was a show that could have been workshopped all summer long. Instead, they did it on the fly.
Of course, that’s entirely on brand. “Utterly uneven hot mess” is representative of what the show has been for years.
