TV #19 of 2022:
Saturday Night Live, season 47
This is the fifth season of SNL in a row that I’ve watched straight through as it aired, so at this point I feel pretty confident in my ability to rate a given span against the program’s typical output. So, what was different for the long-running sketch comedy show this time around?
First, the new cast members. Sarah Sherman brings an offbeat surreal energy that doesn’t always land for me but is distinctive enough that it’s generally refreshing. James Austin Johnson throws himself gamely into roles and is just incredible at the Trump and Biden impressions for which he was hired — a big improvement over anyone the show had used in either capacity before. Aristotle Athari, though, other than his delightful “Laughingtosh 3000” segment on Weekend Update, has failed to really register much all year. I wouldn’t be surprised to see him cut from the roster after this.
Then there’s the size of the cast. At 21 players, this is the largest ensemble Saturday Night Live has ever fielded, and it shows. Some of the senior performers are absent for long stretches of time filming other projects, but when everyone’s around it’s common for some folks to get only a stray line all episode, as often happens with Athari. I personally think the series is best when it feels like a tight-knit troupe, and that’s not exactly what we’ve been getting lately. Luckily four stars have already announced their departures — Aidy Bryant, Kate McKinnon, Pete Davidson, and Kyle Mooney, the first two of whom I’ll especially miss — so if Lorne Michaels and the other producers can hold off on replacing them directly, we might have a more reasonable group going forward.
That count of 21 doesn’t even include Please Don’t Destroy, a trio of writers added this run who also do their own prerecorded skits. These guys are sort of like Lonely Island at making a smaller show within the show, but they haven’t scored anywhere near the hits of that older crew yet. I don’t mind them and I always appreciate a creaky beast like SNL trying new things, but I wouldn’t miss it if this experiment turns out to be one and done.
All of which is to say that overall, season 47 isn’t much better or worse than usual. The laughs are reliable despite some recurring bits yielding the expected diminishing returns, and the political comedy has its heart in the right place even if it doesn’t seem to ever quite live up to the program’s sharp critical reputation. I’m still impressed they manage to throw everything together in a week each time, and it’s a nice distillation of the cultural zeitgeist that I don’t get as cleanly from the scripted series I follow. I wouldn’t call it a favorite this year or any other, but it’s solidly entertaining through and through.
★★★☆☆
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