Ask anybody how they feel about “Saturday Night Live,” and they’ll say something like, “I still like it, but it was so much better before the last cast left.”

It’s a fair opinion since Bill Hader, Kristen Wiig, Andy Samberg and the rest of the late 2000s-early 2010s cast set a ridiculously high standard for the show.  Hader was the first male SNL cast member to be nominated for an Emmy since Eddie Murphy in 1983. Kristen Wiig had more memorable characters than anyone: Target Lady, Gilly, Dooneese, Aunt Linda, Karina from the Californians and about 10 more. Andy Samberg and the rest of The Lonely Island, who were also cast members for a few seasons, revolutionized digital shorts and made them as big a part of the show as the live sketches.  These headliners were backed up by a cast that would have been top billed in most other eras of the show.

Once these people fazed out, the show was bound for a lull.  Some people were hired, some were fired, some writers became cast members and some cast members became writers. From 2013 to 2015, the show hit many low points. Reviews of the show argued the writing was boring, the cast was too big and lacked star power.  Ratings started dipping, and stronger competition in sketch TV comedy emerged in shows like “Key and Peele.”

Seasons 39 and 40 were — to borrow a sports cliché — rebuilding years. The featured players changed dramatically from year to year, and the episodes were clunky because they didn’t have their own style yet.

However, the show had gone through worse periods before and come away stronger for it, and NBC would have to have been insane to consider cancelling the storied program. Saturday Night Live will always make a comeback.

A year ago, the SNL 40th Anniversary Special aired, breathing new life into the show and creating an audience willing to watch again.

The Chris Hemsworth, Dwayne Johnson and Taraji P. Henson episodes brought back classic feelings of all-time sketches, and the cast chemistry started becoming fun, different and very cohesive.

In a rare move, Lorne Michaels restrained himself from changing the cast much this past summer.  Nobody got fired, and just new face, Jon Rudnitsky, joined the cast. Michaels realized the potential of the current group and bet on them growing together.

While not all of the cast members saw their status rise at the same time, top guns like Kate McKinnon, Jay Pharoah and Vanessa Bayer have become more recognizable names.  Plus, the likes of 22-year-old Pete Davidson and 48-year-old Leslie Jones have given the show a more diverse feel.  

During the rebuilding seasons, Weekend Update transitions from Seth Meyers to Cecily Strong to Colin Jost and Michael Che were rocky.  But after a year and a half together, Jost and Che have created a hilarious dynamic playing on Jost’s white bread character and the half-political, half-yo-momma-joke-loving Michael Che.

The best part of this season’s upswing is that it coincides with this crazy election season.  In years with a presidential election, SNL’s cold open for every show of the season seems to poke fun at the clowns running in real life.  The political sketches are what they’re known for these days, and luckily the large cast can accommodate for the huge number of people actually running.

Recently, ratings have crept back up, and the show is looking good.  You’ve probably seen the Ryan Gosling UFO sketch, the Adele family Thanksgiving video, or at least the Bern Your Enthusiasm masterpiece from last week, but I assure you the rest of the show is worth watching, too.

Kyle Stevens is a sophomore advertising major. His column appears weekly in Pulp. You can email him at ksteve03@syr.edu or reach him on Twitter at @kstevs_.

Published on February 14, 2016 at 8:28 pm