While it may be too soon to say “SNL is BACK!” watching last night’s episode had me seriously thinking that the show certainly has momentum. When they went with Seth as head writer a few seasons back now I wasn’t surprised. It was logical, hosting Weekend Update, a centerpiece of the show, he’d be in a good spot to stay active on stage while also quarterbacking the tempo and theme.
Solid cast additions of Michaela and Bobby have, in my opinion, been crucial. I’ve seen both of them numerous times (Michaela more than Bobby, being that she’s a Groundling and taught/performed while I was there) and know that if you can carry a black box as well as they do you can do great things with an incubator like SNL
Timing helps too, SNL, notorious for political satire, lost an unconciousable amount of ground over the last 10 years to Comedy Central (Read:Stewart and Colbert) in this space. I’m not sure how much of it was their fault with NBC’s oversight and lack of presence on the web. However, this year they were back in a big way with politics. They did three election specials, called in favors from SNL alums like Tina Fey, and utilized NBC’s most coveted Thursday 9p primetime as their backdrop to post good numbers, at not too big of a cost to the network. Something NBC will tell you means everything to them.
Also (RE:timing), I’d be remis to not include two huge aspects to viral and web based growth, the Lonely Island and Hulu. While these might not have initially given them bumps in the ratings, they kept SNL relevant, and made critics happy while pleasing droves of fans that spend twice as much time in front of a computer as they do in front of a TV.
Again, while I’m not saying “SNL is BACK!” I am saying that everyone’s hard work on the program is showing, and I hope they’re being rewarded either in viewership or kudo’s from the network brass. On paper that show should pencil and continue to bring NBC a nice profit, especially since they have opportunities like “Pepsuber” to cash in on to the tune of $3M just for the placement. They do relevant, weekly content, that’s web friendly, easy to share, and brings a demo that advertisers like and NBC needs. While I don’t think they’ll bring us another Michael O’Donogue, I do grow more curious each week to see what they’ll do next. So, they got that going for ‘em, which is nice.
