Saturday Night Live
Miles Teller and Kendrick Lamar
October 1, 2022
As I’m sure you know, this is a season of change — literally — for Saturday Night Live. Eight cast members, Aidy Bryant, Pete Davidson, Kate McKinnon, Kyle Mooney, Alex Moffat, Melissa Villaseñor, Aristotle Athari, and Chris Redd, left this season, some under … interesting circumstances.
They have added four new cast members, Marcello Hernandez, Molly Kearney, Michael Longfellow, and Devon Walker, but as anyone who has watched this show for a while knows, it takes a minute before baby cast members find their sea legs.
And so I was ready for this premiere to be uneven. Without seasoned performers like McKinnon and Bryant around to anchor what would otherwise be mediocre sketches, some bits just aren’t going to land as well.
What I was not expecting was for this episode to give me whiplash: sharp and self-aware in one moment, delivering two of the worst sketches I have ever seen on this show in the next. Sketches so bad that at the time of this writing, no one has yet taken credit for writing them. Genuinely, you guys, this episode is one of the most baffling I’ve seen to date.
Not that I’m blaming Miles Teller. I’m not a huge fan of Teller — I find him very punchable, but I understand that this must just be a me thing since he’s a huge Hollywood star. But I have to admit, he did his very best with what he was handed. When the material was good, he was very good! When the material was terrible, he still tried his hardest.
No, the blame lies squarely on the writers and head writers here. Let’s hope they can pull it together in the coming weeks.
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