Saturday Night Live Season 39 Premiere- Review

This past Saturday marked the 39th season premiere of the coveted Saturday Night Live. The stakes for this season have been at a high due to recent cast additions as well as the departures of fan favorites, Bill Hader, Fred Armisen and Jason Sudeikis. However, with SNL alum, Tina Fey as host, viewers felt a bit at ease.

The whole episode was an ongoing joke about the new cast members and how this season is set to be a restructuring season (which is not uncommon for Saturday Night Live). In fact, the opening monologue featured the new players (as the cast are called) in an “embarrassing dance routine.”

The episode itself featured the usual amount of laughs and while Tina Fey still showed that her live TV comedic timing hasn’t gone away, the real stars of the show were two polar opposites: an actor from an extremely popular TV show and a player on the show who has only been on for a season.

Yes, I’m talking about Aaron Paul of Breaking Bad and Cecily Strong. Aaron Paul, clearly promoting the final episode of Breaking Bad, came on the show as his character and of course laughter ensued. Paul was involved in three sketches, all of which led to huge laughs among the audience. As for Cecily Strong, this marked her first episode as the new co-anchor for Weekend Update.

Strong was a standout last season and was featured in numerous sketches. She also was at the Weekend Update desk often portraying different humorous characters so for her to be the new co-anchor didn’t really surprise anyone.

What was surprising was the fact that she was in so many other sketches throughout the night as well. In my opinion, SNL is molding Cecily Strong to be one of the top leading ladies (a role previously filled by Tina Fey, Amy Poehler and Kristen Wiig).

I’m okay with that, though. Cecily Strong has shown great promise and continues to gain my respect as a comedic actress. My only hope is for SNL to hold on to her for a little bit longer before she goes off to do bigger things in the industry.

In order for SNL to do well in its reconstructing season, writers need to rely on the stronger players to help carry the new players. I’m truly excited for the rest of the season and can’t wait to see the chemistry between the new and old players.

 

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