Two Timelines, One SNL: Will Lorne Michaels Pick Courage or Comfort?

With the season premiere of the second half-century of Saturday Night Live coming up on October 4th, creator, executive producer, and perennial (except for those five years he never talks about) Lorne Michaels is faced with a dilemma.

Not the usual and longstanding controversy about SNL’s lack of diversity in its cast. (Apparently there are no funny Black women at this time.) Or the annual blitz to assemble a reshuffled cast (five newbies, two departed veterans) into a cohesive comedy unit in the feverish last few weeks before the first show.

No, there’s something else.

Oh, right: the end of free speech in America. Knew it was something.

With Wednesday’s firing (sorry “indefinite suspension”) of fellow practitioner of the late-night arts Jimmy Kimmel by ABC following on the heels of CBS’ choice to cancel The Late Show With Stephen Colbert in July, the focus now shifts to SNL 51, as the lockstep march of government censorship and corporate cowardice and complicity overtly targets the late-night comedy scene.

CBS was transparently disingenuous in saying that inveterate Trump-mocker Colbert’s cancellation had nothing (nothing, they say!) to do with parent company Paramount’s then-pending multi-billion dollar merger with Skydance Media being threatened by the Trump administration. ABC/Disney hasn’t even bothered offering up so much as a feeble excuse, simply knuckling under to FCC head Brendan Carr’s threats against Kimmel for making a joke that the right-wing, bad-faith brigade didn’t like.

(For context and clarity, Kimmel’s joke was not about conservative activist Charlie Kirk’s murder but about Trump’s obvious callous hypocrisy surrounding it and about conservatives utilizing it to attack free speech by getting people fired—which, see above.)

So enter Saturday Night Live, the venerable comedy institution which has made (moderate) president-mockery its bread and butter since its 1975 start, and which now faces a television landscape scoured for spurious excuses for punishment by an escalating authoritarian regime basically cracking its knuckles in anticipation of the first time James Austin Johnson in full Trump makeup takes to Studio 8H’s stage.

(As an aside, here’s to JAJ, a brilliantly talented mimic and comic actor whose world-class Trump impression has been hamstrung by SNL’s signature milky satirical approach. Good luck to you, sir.)

Now, there are a couple of ways Saturday Night Live under Michaels could go for Season 51 and, considering that one takes place in our depressing reality of low expectations and crushing routine, and one exists in the more bracingly hopeful world fanciful writers like to invent, I’m going to lay out a sort-of multiversal vision for SNL Season 51.

On Earth One (where we live, regrettably), Saturday Night Live tries to play it even safer than usual. Michaels has two other late night shows, The Tonight Show and Late Night With Seth Meyers already in Trump, Carr, and the slavering censorship gang’s crosshairs, with NBC executives no doubt huddled in preemptive panic meetings about possible retribution. (Even harmless hair-toussler Fallon’s watery Trump monologue jokes are likely being vetted like one of Trump’s many pre-nups.)

The SNL writers’ room under Michaels and a surprisingly returning Colin Jost will similarly rinse, scrape, and re-scrub every potentially triggering-to-Trump line and sketch, with Michaels hand-waving the process by doubling down on his perpetual “comedy is both-sides” elder statesman routine. The show leans away from politics as much as possible, zipping past the now-mandatory cold opens to swerve into “just comedy” sketches.

Hosts are booked to appeal to conservative viewers (look for Shane Gillis for the third time, while the hiring of Gillis’ pal Kam Patterson opens the door for visits from fellow right-wing comics like Tony Hinchcliffe and [shudder] Joe Rogan).

Meanwhile, “Weekend Update” under Jost and Michael Che leans even heavier into the longtime duo’s chummy-buddy antagonism while speeding past the impossible-to-ignore GOP atrocities of the week with just enough of the pair’s cheek to satisfy the less discriminating.

The thing is, the Saturday Night Live formula barely needs to be tweaked to keep it out of the sort of trouble the ruling party is looking to make. SNL’s post-Watergate satirical courage was a largely overblown element of Michaels’ scruffy little experiment, and the decades and multi-millionaire mogul Lorne’s increasing identification with the ruling classes he once blew raspberries at has rendered SNL largely toothless. It’s a comedy cruise ship, boasting “something for everybody” entertainment, and which can only turn toward meaningful comic waters with the sort of strenuous and committed group effort the comfortable Michaels rarely allows. 

So Earth One’s SNL 51 alienates further those viewers looking for the show to seize upon the perilous moment, regarding each ho-hum, winking Trump joke with increasing frustration, as the cast and writers sweatily pretend this is all normal. The season puts along into placid irrelevancy. 

But on Earth Two, Jimmy Kimmel and Stephen Colbert are tapped to host the show’s opener. (Bad Bunny, we love you—OK to take Episode 4 instead?)

Meanwhile, “Weekend Update” invites other unjustly fired media figures like MSNBC’s Matthew Dowd and Washington Post writer Karen Attiah to deliver some spicy guest commentary (with jokes) by cutting back one recurring character a week. Outspoken superstar musical acts like Bruce Springsteen, Beyoncé, and Taylor Swift are given two full, unfettered numbers apiece to stir up the audience.

Other hosts are chosen for maximum impact, and allowed free rein to use their monologue time as they see fit. (Dream hosts for the moment: Patton Oswalt, Josh Johnson, John Oliver, Samantha Bee, Jerrod Carmichael, see if Key and Peele are up for a reunion.)

The show, recognizing that appeasement to a tyrant brings only more and more demands, doubles down. The hardest, sharpest sketches each week aren’t filed away for the writers’ subsequent, more creatively daring, sketch series (see: Bob Odenkirk, Tim Robinson), but come blasting out of the gate right after the monologue, setting the defiant tone for the show that follows.

Government threats are openly mocked on-air and turned into sketches. JAJ’s Trump is likewise unleashed, with the comic allowed to channel the jagged edge of the impression that got him the job in the first place, turning Trump’s increasing rage at the relentless mockery into a funhouse mirror of thwarted egomania and blustering buffoonery.

Will NBC cave in like CBS and ABC have? Possibly. Maybe Season 51 is four episodes long and Saturday Night Live’s last. Maybe Lorne Michaels the multi-millionaire mogul retires early to his beloved St. Barts, smarting from the waves of abuse but warmed as much by the memories of old rebellious comedy dreams as by the Caribbean sun. 

But…

Maybe this flashpoint of brilliant, courageous comedy colliding with thin-skinned dictatorial malice provides enough illumination to shock Americans out of their frogs-in-a-pot complacency, Trump and his minions’ inevitably monstrous retribution waking the public to just how far we’ve gone down a very dark road. 

A lot to ask from 80-year-old Lorne Michaels and his 50-year-old TV show? Perhaps. But Saturday Night Live has coasted on its reputation so long and so far into safe waters that it, every season, provokes more shrugs than controversy—or laughs.

With actual, on-the-record threats to shut down even SNL’s brand of middling political comedy, Season 51 is going to see the show face a choice. It’s inevitable, it’s coming, and if it’s foolish to imagine that Earth Two’s SNL might actually intrude into our beleaguered reality, then here’s to the fools. 

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