Saturday Night Live. Those three words can conjure up many sounds and images. Some strange; some fantastic; some outright pathetic. Most people who have been fans at any point in time choose to prefer the ones that please them. Almost like life itself, it seems. People tend to remember 'the good years' over and over again. I'm not going to rain on your parade unless your parade happens to be the 2016-17 season. If so, you may want to move on or you might want to read this anyway.
Statistics say that ratings for this past year were the best in 23 years. It's not hard to figure out why. Yes, there were some good hosts and Dave Chappelle made his long awaited TV return as well.
However, our current President had something (or pretty much everything) to do with this upturn in viewers.
Alec Baldwin was pretty much a cast member this past year. Playing the candidate and then President Trump seems to be a thrill for him and he certainly does gets some good digs in at Trump's expense. However, the political humor can be a bit scattershot at times and even a bit tiring. Making media figures like Lester Holt and Jake Tapper into major players in sketches can be tricky and sometimes irrelevant to someone who watches these programs as reruns ten years down the road.
Kate McKinnon was perhaps the major cast member this year. As Hilary Clinton and Kellyanne Conway, she channeled the anger and madness of this past election cycle. However, opening the show with Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah" twice? Enough already.
The other cast members performed respectably but none rose to McKinnon's manic level. I still don't understand why they let Jay Pharaoh go at the end of last season when he did such great celebrity impressions. With all of the talk of the lack of cast diversity, this still boggles my mind.
It's very apparent that with the ongoing political correctness entering the comedy world, the field on which to create laughter keeps getting smaller and smaller. Sketches done twenty years ago would certainly offend more people today. Why? The ability to be laughed at seems to be shrinking. Just ask the President. On second thought, please don't.
The area of dark comedy on the program also keeps getting more and more rare. Why? It's hard to say but I think it's more difficult to get the tone just right and therefore gets pushed aside in the course of the show's hurried weekly production schedule. The filmed "Dead Poet's Society" parody with Fred Armisen was one the best examples of a good dark sketch this past year.
Because of pressure to keep ratings up, the musical guest lineup keeps getting less and less daring ae well. Were there any actual rock bands and/or performers over 50 years old last year? I don't remember one. The precious 18 to 49 demographic simply wouldn't stand for it. To use an oft quoted Presidential lament, 'sad.'
Finally, the Weekend Update portion of the show seemed to be the most improved part of the show. Jost and Che have finally found a natural give and take feel to the segment. Again, however, the political part of the bit threatened to drag things down at times. Believe or not, there are other things happening in the world.
My final words. Dare to be a little less proud and a tad more silly. It still can be done. Melissa McCarthy's take on Sean Spicer was perfect to me.
