A lot is supposed to happen in the 50th season Saturday evening Live: a series of retrospectives, a big anniversary special in February and some popular cast members and former hosts returning for new appearances, be it as host or in cameo appearances. The latter, of course, happens almost every season, and more so as the show accumulates a greater index of both, and so far it looks like Season 50 will be pretty typical in that regard. Although the host list only includes one alumni, John Mulaney, scheduled in a few weeks, the season premiere's political cold open featured no fewer than three former cast members, plus a bonus Jim Gaffigan.

The season also looks typical in other ways. A few years ago, there were rumors that Lorne Michaels wanted the then-current cast to stick around until at least Season 50 and/or hoped to translate that familiarity into some kind of quasi-all-star season. Instead, cast members continued to rotate in and out as usual – including Chloe Troast, who was unceremoniously (and foolishly!) fired this summer after a promising freshman season – and the only real lasting legacy associated with this season's cast is already known : the continued record-breaking performances starring Kenan Thompson and the duo of Colin Jost and Michael Che outstaying their welcome on the Weekend Update desk. (Jost is another employee who recently caused a stir over his departure; in his 2020 memoir, he casually speculated that he probably has another season or so left in him. This is his fifth season as of this publication. ) It's not even likely that this will be the final season for Michaels, who once expressed that he would quit after season 50 and recently revisited that idea. Now he can bask in the glory of his de facto biopic Saturday eveningwhich is now playing in select cities before expanding in the coming weeks without feeling like it's watching its own retirement party.

None of this should be particularly surprising. There were no major format changes or cast overhauls to celebrate the 15th, 25th, or 40th seasons (the other rounds that warranted anniversary specials). But there will always be some viewers who long for a less regimented, less formulaic film SNL. People who, in other words, are always waiting for the second episode of this unpredictable battle against all that the first episode promises, so imaginatively dramatized in the new film: a show that could include several musical guests, stand-up segments and short films Movies, super-short skits, puppet shows, unannounced cast changes, and up to three or four commercial parodies in a single episode. The Season 50 premiere was emphatically not that, never would be, and doesn't need to be that. However, it was arguably a step backwards in the show's history, as many recent features were missing (music videos, tracks from Please Don't Destroy/Digital Short, other pre-release recordings), including only one traditional fake-advertising filmed piece. The rest of the sketches were familiar things like game show parodies, talk show parodies, and cheap political pieces.


And look, folks, this 15-minute, barely satirical political cold open had a bit of a class reunion feel to it, even though it took up almost a quarter of the episode's actual airtime. No, Gaffigan doesn't have a special connection to the series that would justify his presence, but he undeniably has the right energy to play vice presidential candidate Tim Walz. And Maya Rudoloh's Kamala Harris was a foregone conclusion, and she lowered her voice. Andy Samberg as Harris' sweet, goofy husband Doug Emhoff was more of a gimmick, but it's not like he snatched a signature role from a regular. And Joe Biden has come to seem like such a liability (not to mention a lame duck) that it's hard to imagine anyone who cares about Dana Carvey stepping in to do a little work on his old “Find some vocal hooks.” find “to work over and over again draw” magic.

Even I, someone who thought Carvey far more highly as a 12-year-old viewer than as an (edited) viewer, laughed out loud when he perfectly interrupted his own “guess what?” for the first time. with “and by the way.” (It's really the “and” that sells it.) It's not snarky or insightful at all, but simply sells the “Biden is old” joke with a little more finesse than the various comics that do have tried this in the past. (Has Biden overtaken George W. Bush to become the president whose impressionist has changed the most?) But I think that now counts as a retro charm, which again felt really surprising in the context of cold openness. So often it's a dreary parade of guest stars enduring a week, a month, or, in this case, a summer of impossible catch-ups. Do people who like endless cameos feel like this all the time?!

Regardless, the rest of the episode had less charm or surprise. This wasn't a pleasantly brief start to Season 50, one that only viewers bitter about the show's established format couldn't enjoy. It was a really disappointing episode. You can't blame presenter Jean Smart, even if her timing and card placement were out of sync a few times; It's not as if some big reputation or apparent ego looms over the proceedings. In fact, she was a refreshing choice as kickoff host: an experienced, well-known actress whose career dates back almost to that point Saturday Night Live himself, who has found new recognition as a star of Hacksa show about comedy, no less!

Given all of this, the premiere had all the hallmarks of a relatively low-key, uneven, but largely solid and straightforward episode – aside from the actual laughs. In this sense, the 50th season is on a very good track SNL Start.

So let's delve further into this.

What was going on?

Out of five proper sketches and a pre-tape, only the Spirit Halloween commercial really deserves a spot here. It's not exactly full of revelations, but the setting for “Spirit Halloween,” which boasts about bringing economically devastated communities together, was good.



I'd also like to commiserate with the final skit of the night on the Real Housewives of Santa Fe, even (or especially?!) if the whole joke was just Andrew Dismukes becoming increasingly dismayed by the lack of a location by several Serve trays of sizzling hot fajitas. It probably needed more physical comedy to work, or at least a strong reaction from the audience, which maybe they were expecting but didn't get, but I'll say this: I liked it better than the audience. Any skit that pits Dismukes against Heidi Gardner, Ego Nwodim, and Chloe Fineman and yelling at each other is bound to work at least somewhat well for me.

What was going on?

Yes. Let's just move past the “$100,000 Pyramid” running after the summer at the current joke collection point (at least the chimpanzee puppet was funny?) and talk about Smart's two big showcase sketches, which had a strange problem. In one of them she played a romance novelist who was tasked with writing a mathematics textbook, whose word problems were therefore inappropriate and ultimately nonsensical. In another case, she played a more serious dramatic actor who was originally miscast I love Lucy. The premise is more or less the same: someone approaches a familiar job the “wrong way.” And in both cases the explanation feels more difficult and shaky than necessary. Since I'm not a comedy writer, I'm certainly not going to bother trying to figure out how these premises could have been explained more quickly, more succinctly, or more convincingly. But it seems especially important to get there quicker and easier if your leading man is a new character actor rather than a seasoned sketch comedian. Both sketches found it difficult to recover from the escalation, although “Textbook Writer” made a good attempt, making the author's romantic prose crazier and its mathematical content even more questionable as it progressed. But ultimately it's still just a sketch of people reading word problems, and that's what came out of it Lucy Sketch looks worse because it didn't even reach those heights.



Most Valuable Player (who may or may not be ready for prime time)

This might sound fishy, ​​but I think it has to be Kenan this week, just because of the amount of laughs he got with sketches that mostly didn't work, namely the $100,000 pyramid and the novelist parts. I have to say that Devon Walker showed more energy in the game show sketch and his appearance on Weekend Update than he did in most of last season. He created a lovably goofy Eric Adams, but as a New Yorker, it's hard not to remember that Chris Redd more accurately captured the man's essence when he portrayed him in 2022.

The next time

Nate Bargatze is trying to turn things around at Mulaney speed by hosting twice in less than 12 months!

Crazy observations

• • Hello, I'm Jesse and I'll be yours SNL Repeat offender this season. I usually write about films here The AV Club. But I watched SNL Regularly for more than three decades, now I often enjoy it more than anything else on TV and I have experience loving supposedly popular thingMany people still think that they are very stupid. I hope to take up the mantle of the great Dennis Perkins with honor!
• • Where the hell was…? Here's the part of the recap where I ask where the hell a particular cast member was. Where the hell was Sarah Sherman?
• • Actually, here's an answer: She played Troye Sivan after she was famously (?) haunted by it Troye Sivan Sleep Demon last year. She could be the first SNL Actor who plays both the regular version of a celebrity and the victim of the sleep demons haunted by that celebrity.
• • Was the once and future Sarah Squirm also seen riding the bus in the new opening credits? No joke, this was perhaps my favorite part of the episode. Chloe Fineman may not have had much to do in the episode other than playing Hawk Tuah, but I saw it Megalopolis tonight and then saw her dancing on the subway in the new opening credits, so it still felt like a Chloe Fineman night.
• • Between merging the baby hippo Moo Deng with the plight of Chappell Roan and hosting a talk show as Charli XCX, this was a big week for Bowen's pop fan base. The Moo Deng/Chappell mashup made me laugh in an otherwise routine weekend update. However, I'm not entirely convinced about his Charli XCX. Yang is hilarious, but his impressions are mostly funny because you can hear his own commentary on whoever he's nominally imitating, and I think in this case I'd rather see someone actually imitate Charli.
• • As for Jelly Roll's music, I really like Charli XCX. (Actually, he was fine. He's just not my thing.)