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SNL's transition summer hasn't been smooth. The show's new team was to begin work on Aug. 14, but Michaels didn't secure his last few writers and final two cast members (returnee Shannon and newcomer Darrell Hammond) until last week. Moreover, despite the influx of new faces, veteran SNL watchers are wondering just how much of a rejuvenation the show will get. Four of the five new performers come from the Goundlings and Second City--the same comedy troupes Michaels has mined for years. In addition, SNL's notoriously male-dominated culture seems likely to continue unchanged: only three of this season's 17 writers are women.
Despite the problems, the pressure and the pre-emptive bad buzz, Michaels remains unflappable. "I wish I could say with certainty that this show will be a smash," he says, "but I know it will be a lot of people trying very hard." One big improvement, he contends, is the reduced size of the cast--from 13 to nine. Last year's numbers were "a huge problem from a writing perspective," says David Mandel, who left SNL to write for Seinfeld, "because you were juggling so many people, you could never hook into any one performer." Hiring unknowns, Michaels says, will help the show's stability, since fewer cast members will be tempted by movie offers--something of an epidemic in recent years. "We're back to the show being the most important thing," he says. "Holding it to higher standards--that's my job."
To do that, however, Michaels will need a sharper editing eye than some feel he demonstrated last season. "I saw pretty good sketches die on the way to the screen," notes Michael McKean, another departing cast member. "If a sketch asked a lot of an audience, they didn't want it. By and large, you had one smart piece within the 90 minutes." Michaels will need to come up with a lot more of those next season if Saturday Night is to live again.