The Reliability of “Saturday Night Live”

Over on my other website SCRAPS!, I wrote an essay about how I was planning to watch the new season of Saturday Night Live. At the time, I was unsure what I would think about the show. I had never been a regular watcher, but I definitely benefited from late nights in my younger years, and endless piles of VHS and DVDs of the greatest hits still line my shelves. Still, as the old adage goes, I wanted to know if the show was still “funny.” Mostly because of the very successful SNL50 over the past summer, I have been inundated with clips of more contemporary skits that have piqued my interest. It was also a good time to just laugh.

To be candid, the world is a mess. I do my best to stay tuned into the news and comprehend everything that’s going on. Even then, I look at The White House being demolished and have emotions come out that I didn’t know I had. There’s so much darkness in the world that, quite frankly, the more thematically complex shows won’t allow me to use as escapism. Even if it’s been a considerable period since I would call myself a fan of sketch comedy, there has been some curiosity to just put away my troubles for a bit and engage with something simpler, that’s not asking me to overthink how my day was going.

A benefit to this experiment was that I didn’t have to watch on Saturday night, nor did I have to do it live. Thanks to Peacock, I could just be reminded a day or two later that a new episode was out there waiting for me. It would be a chance to dim the lights, draw the curtains, and grab a cozy blanket. It wouldn’t take long to realize that, despite not having seen an episode in the last… 17 (?) years, I had some familiarity with portions of the cast. I knew Colin Jost from Pop Culture Jeopardy!, Sarah Sherman from Human vs. Hamster, and Keenan Thompson from the 90's (he’s maybe the only cast member in history that I knew of before they were on the show, which makes his involvement extra confusing). I had seen Marcello Hernandez cameo in Happy Gilmore 2 (2025), and the Jane Wickline sketch where she sings about The Tolley Problem on Valentine’s Day is the one SNL sketch that I have revisited at least once a month since discovering it. There’s enough going on to at least get me through the door.

At the time of publication, I have seen the first five episodes of season 51. It’s an interesting time in the show’s history. My understanding is that there was a major exodus from the show in the months leading up to the premiere, meaning that a significant portion of the cast were new. I’m unsure what that’s about, save for the fear that late night, as a larger concept, is at risk of disappearing. While this mostly applies to talk shows with more limited markets, there’s something to an institution like Saturday Night Live potentially being canceled that seems tragic. It’s a name that carries decades of talent who have reshaped the industry and, in some ways, bettered it. Whereas we’re on the verge of Stephen Colbert’s swan song, it feels more important than ever to recognize the value of legacy media; not necessarily because it keeps new ideas from taking hold, but because it unifies a larger culture.

Before digging into my feelings on the show, I will share the one word this experience has reminded me of: monoculture. For those who aren’t watching Saturday Night Live every week, it’s easy to just assume that the new guys have a new sense of humor. While that’s true, some things have remained true. They have largely been henpecked by Lorne Michaels and cover the array of thematic sketch comedy that has been in the show’s DNA going back to 1975. The video packages are no different from what Albert Brooks was doing. They were parodying commercials since Triopenin. Even the set-up for Weekend Update is largely the same as it was on night one with exception of maybe more established supporting roles. Everything about the show feels the same as it did 50 years ago, which, to be completely honest, is not a terrible thing. 

This is all to say that Saturday Night Live is the exact same show it’s always been. I’m sure there are those who look at the overproduced introductions and feel unpleasant déjà vu, but it feels like part of a pastime, like how every theater performer will get stuck doing Gypsy eventually. If anything, it’s around here that the self-expression begins to shine through as every performer gets their own unique sequence. In the case of this recent batch, they have a “show must go on” mentality, where there’s a constant need to perform even as the camera reveals the artifice just out of frame. It’s not a great gag, but it’s effective at communicating personality in quick succession. 

When I say that the show feels the same, I say that truthfully. If you pull a dozen skits from any season, I promise they will share a similar identity to what is currently being aired. Maybe it’s my subconscious projecting, but I am charmed by the fact that Saturday Night Live has remained a collaborative showcase for every actor. There are those sketches that feel more formal while others delve into complete nonsense. It’s the recognition that everyone is writing to the host’s strengths, and it does explain why some episodes are weaker than others. That, and the worst-kept secret that they basically create a show in a week, relying on the go-for-broke nature of first thought best thought creation. It’s all a commendable push towards meeting a deadline and defying shortcomings. Sometimes it lands. Sometimes it doesn’t. Even during any hypothetical “golden age,” there were weeks on par with these five episodes.

This was best seen in the premiere episode, which featured Bad Bunny as host. Having been one of the rare high points of Happy Gilmore 2, I was confident that he would bring the funny and deliver a stellar episode. I’m not saying it wasn’t funny, but it definitely had the awkward kinks of being the premiere where nobody was fully back yet. It was also here that I began to learn how much they crib from Netflix properties for gags, as they dedicated one of the worst sketches of the night to Bad Bunny telling his friends how much he loved K-Pop Demon Hunters (2025) before having the Huntryx singers come out. There wasn’t much of a punchline but instead emphasized the goofiness of pop culture references. Is that bad? Some people were laughing. If YouTube numbers are to be believed, it did capture attention. However, it was one of the moments where I worried that maybe Saturday Night Live in 2025 was just another meme machine. 

Another thing that I became intrigued by to analyze was the conversation around the show online. Having some familiarity with the sketches, I could now look at how they were recommended to me. Reading the comments, I could understand whether or not there was an audience there. When scrolling through YouTube, I’d see the view count and notice that, for a show that’s continually maligned, it still draws attention. They may often top out at one or two million for smaller sketches, but somebody is watching. Again, I think it’s a monoculture thing, much like the disparity you see on The Daily Show videos, where they all do well, but Jon Stewart’s tend to cover larger ground. The familiarity is in itself a comfortable middle ground for everybody to partake in. With Bad Bunny, he may have produced a flimsy episode, but it still brought commentary on the upcoming Super Bowl gig. There was a sense of importance that transcended a comedy show’s limited impact.

Without digging too far into every episode, my observations are, on some level, that I am out of touch with pop culture. While I am capable of figuring out the political sketches easily, it feels like every episode has to parody some Netflix docuseries that I never will watch. They’re all well-made, but I can’t determine if the talking heads are a direct parody or if it’s an original idea. There also seems to be a large reliance on karaoke bits, or at least singing, where the joke is that it’s funny to see comedians belting out numbers in awkward situations. At least one of them had Sabrina Carpenter tap dancing as a dishwasher (long story).

Moving beyond Bad Bunny, the mixed results begin to form more of a charm. Maybe it’s the comfort of routine that’s developed,, or that the hosts have a more versatile craft. It definitely was true of Amy Poehler, who kept the spirit alive of having cameos from former cast members, including Tina Fey and Seth Meyers. I’d argue that of the five, Sabrina Carpenter might’ve been the best solely because even the lesser sketches had a level of commitment that kept everything moving. In one sketch, she plays a motivational speaker who keeps falling out of a window. Her speech begins to slur, and it’s unclear whether she had a concussion, but the trainwreck remains appealing because she has some great dance moves. It’s part of the show’s more wackadoo side that doesn’t always land, but, in my heart of hearts, I couldn’t help appreciating. That and the final sketch of the night, where Ilana Glazer has to deal with her pinwheel-obsessed imaginary friends was enough to make me smile. Not to leave Miles Teller out of this piece, but his NHL promo sketch in particular had some enjoyable wordplay.

Despite the praise, the quest for escapism hasn’t been totally successful. Given the show’s rich history of political satire, it’s been hard to not comment on “event of the week” moments. Nowhere is this more prevalent than in opening sketches where four of the five centered around conservative issues with three eventually turning into lengthy monologues by the president. I understand that he’s a figure who is shaping the world and needs to be commented on, but it feels like a crutch sometimes. This was especially true in the Ilana Glazer week, where it took the infamous picture of the president ignoring a fallen colleague in his office and turned it into a monologue of current events. I’m sure there were jokes there, but it felt like lazy filler.  Again, I know there’s no way to get out of doing this, but I pray there’s more to these than the president walking into other people’s stories and hijacking the narrative.

Despite this criticism, I will give Saturday Night Live some credit. Despite finding parodies of the president nauseous at this point, there is something docile about their take that makes it easier to stomach. Other takes are more grotesque, relying on a haggard voice that can be downright shrill, but all it does is remind me that we’re all failing to make a disastrous decade of existence better. Maybe it’s because Saturday Night Live is one of the few institutions that I don’t expect to reshape public discourse, but their depiction exists outside the crass corners of the uncanny valley. He’s not wandering around a grand guignol set, nor is he as ugly as in real life. He’s not mugging for the camera. He’s just a man and, for any shortcomings in imitation, I think makes the intolerable tolerable.

To the show’s credit, they also created two sketches with the president that would actually rank as some of my favorites from this experiment. The more famous example involves a Property Brothers parody where they’re building the ballroom and going through every delirious suggestion. However, I prefer the one where a series of young boys hosting a podcast talk about their lives in a very Gen Alpha manner before revealing who their guest is. The way it conveys the president’s speech patterns and ability to evade a question is a great source of comedy that gets to how the world is too interlocked in language that divides and confuses. By setting it in such a (literal) juvenile setting, it also points out how little the president cares to let go of unrelated grievances, even at the expense of a more casual conversation.

Before I start wrapping up, I would also like to say that my initial concerns regarding Weekend Update not being what it used to be are mostly false. Sure, there are more romanticized eras of the show, and my instinct is to make fun of Jost because of a joke in The People’s Joker (2024), but I do think once again the show is what it’s always been. Any criticism that Jost and Michael Che are lacking as anchors seems off to me. There are at least a handful of jokes per episode that are cleverly written. I’d even argue that the nature of Jost and Che almost laughing at each other adds something sweet to the whole thing. Jost especially always seems on the verge of laughing, and, unlike other alumni, it’s kind of charming because I think the effort will have been worth the response.

For as much as the show falls back on reliable elements, I think my experience has been a mostly positive one. When pulling up the sketch list for each episode, I found myself still able to recall portions with decent opinions. For as much as it felt like there was an onslaught of cameos (not mentioned so far were appearances from Benicio Del Toro, Ramy Yousef, and Pete Davidson) and a certain reliance of being “terminally online,” the show still plays as it normally does. Anyone complaining that it’s not as funny as it used to just have different interests. I’ll admit at first I was turned off because the Bad Bunny episode felt disjointed, but I began to see the charm of a cast that worked around problems. Even someone who felt as repetitive in sketch theme as Ilana Glazer still had a cast around her delivering some worthwhile humor. It’s clear that not one person is in charge of Saturday Night Live, and, in this day and age, I crave that feeling of collaboration. 

And yet, for as different as things may be from decades ago or not, the one thing that always warms my heart is also one of the cornier elements. Like a curtain call at the end of a play, Saturday Night Live ends with the cast on stage looking at the audience as the band plays. The camera cuts around and you see the actors talking among themselves, some still in costume, and realize how amazing it is that someone could produce art that quickly, that they could do it together, and know that next week will be another challenge. It’s the intersection of completion and restarting. 

I’m unsure if I’ll keep up with the show for the remainder of its existence. At some point, I’m sure I’ll miss too many to care. But, for now, I look to the news and I see reason for my heart to sink. Then, once a week, I see that Saturday Night Live has a new episode, and I’ll get to laugh for a while. I’m not sure if it’ll be great or just fine, but odds are that it’ll remind me what’s great about comedy. It’s about the effort to make something out of nothing, to not let the darkness ruin a good time. Of all reasons to not change up your formula, I’d say that’s a pretty good reason.