Six new featured players begin the season while another is added in the middle of the year. Can they be subsumed into the show without issues?
We spent a good portion of the Season 38 show explaining to you how Saturday Night Live actually improved without the presence of Kristen Wiig. Does the trend hold in Season 39 despite the departures of Bill Hader, Jason Sudeikis, and Fred Armisen?
In a word, no. In a sentence, well, this is a season with a number of issues that linger and haunt episodes all year long.
The first episode begins with the introduction of six(!) new featured players: Beck Bennett, Brooks Wheelan, Noel Wells, John Milhiser, Kyle Mooney, and Mike O’Brien. It’s fair to say none of them ever reach a true comfort zone at any point. And even after watching all 21 episodes, you could be forgiven for forgetting a couple of them ever were a part of the show. Only two (Bennett and Mooney) would survive in on-air slots into Season 40.
The show suffers this season from noticably weaker writing and a struggle to find a true center. Early on, Kenan seems to be the favored cast member until Cecily Strong gets pushed to the front. Jay Pharoah even gets his turn in the spotlight. Yet the show still can’t seem to find the uber-reliable star it had for the past decade or so.
Midway through the season, the show also added a seventh featured player in the form of Sasheer Zamata. Her hiring came after some public controversy over the show’s lack of an African-American female cast member. Zavata got a ton of screen time in her first show and even got to deliver the “Live From New York!” in three straight episodes later on.
Long-time head writer and Weekend Update anchor Seth Meyers departed mid-season after sharing the desk with Cecily Strong for the first half of the year. We take some time to reflect on Meyers’ legacy after his long stint at 30 Rock. The phase “grudging respect” is used.
Now, you might think you’re watching Season 10 at times due to the reliance on pre-taped pieces. Unfortunately, the vast majority of these are rancid anti-comedy pieces. If you’re a Kyle Mooney fan, you might want to skip through that portion of our show.
Some pretty good first time hosts get a shot in Season 39 — Jim Parsons, Lady Gaga, Andrew Garfield, and others impress. Meanwhile, seemingly half the monologues feature some kind of big celebrity cameos, which gets predictable after a while.
We discuss all the cast comings and goings, plus the bemoan the lack of any truly classic sketches on this S39 edition of Wasn’t That Special. Please subscribe and join us for a trip through every year of SNL. And consider joining at the Executive Producer level, where you get a whole load of extra commentary and clips that will help you become an SNL expert.
Scot Bertram 
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