By Matt Underwood The dude needed to start the process of gradually stepping back 10 years ago.
He’s not only holding the show back creatively and driving it into the ground by pandering to audiences that can’t carry the show anymore, but he’s also been excused of fostering an inexcusably toxic work environment. The dude dragged his feet for decades before begrudgingly embracing female comics, dragged his feet before begrudgingly accepting black comments,dragged his feet before begrudgingly accepting the demand from his favorite staff member that he hire more black women, demanded that they be nice to presidsnt Trump, pandered to racists by hiring a known racist comic (people in the scene as him said there’s literally no way anyone who did the bare minimum of research didn’t figure out what he was about), and has actively pushed the show to mediocrity when there’s talent
People like Tim Robinson and Zach Galifianakis make sense, because their writing is a bit too absurd and niche for the show. But Lorne has been booting everyone who doesn’t fit into a neat box for a while. Somehere in the 90s, SNL just totally lost what little guts it had. It was always a push and pull between Lorne & the network & the cast pushing the limits, but since the 90s he’s had so much unilateral industry power to destroy them that nobody dares disobey him and the show is worse for it. He never should have been allowed to become the tyrant he became (based on skittish statements from those who briefly worked the show and those who nervously speak anonymously off the record). The show was just hugely shaken by 2001-2004 Bush years when it was all patriotism all the time and they were personally being threatened with anthrax and shit, and Lorne stepped up to maintain control and has just refused to let go of those tightly held reigns since. He shouldn’t have nearly as much creative control as he does because he clearly doesn’t understand what target audiences think is funny anymore.
I think people forget that SNL was somewhat edgy and innovative. It was outrageous and silly and had an “anything can happen” vibe. People like Fey and Poehler and Samberg and Kirsten Wiig and John Mulaney were funny enough that people didn’t mind the new ultra-sanitized post-9/11 version of SNL for a while, bit then those people started getting replaced by less talented people and for some reason rather than building up a strong ensemble cast, Michaels just increasingly relied on 1 or 2 heavy hitters, go-to sketches, and then just left the rest of the cast to wither in the background so they and the writers never had time to build up an understanding of one another.why is Kyle mooney still on the show at this point?? He was one of the only cast mates who was entering snl with a strong online following from youtube and the assumption was he was gonna be the next Samberg and his cut sketches do seem to still generate a lot of love with about half the audience, but they just refuse to air anything remotely risky in favor of putting forth an over-produced sketch with too few punchlines
SNL has been in a pretty major creative rut despite having a super talented team. Lorne was great for the first 30 or so years, but absolutely nobody can continue to be innovative for longer than that. He’s already the longest running comedic leader and his legacy is undeniable, but it’s becoming increasingly clear he’s aged out (about 25 years later than most people in comedy, so good for him). Nobody is willing to push Lorne’s boundaries, and his boundaries are behind the times.
The biggest issue is the cast dynamics he fosters is under the assumption that if you make people compete, that pushes them to be better. But a lot of really funny people have said, as politely ask they can, no that’s not the case. That it makes them play it safe which is the opposite of an environment that builda good comddy
Edit: the Trump comment was about the 2016 episode hosted by Trump in which news media reported that there’d clearly been a lot of drama going on behind the scenes, and that the rumors (aka nobody wanted to speak on the record lest michaels get offended and blacklist them) was that lorne Michaels had given them unprecedented restrictions saying he didn’t want the show to “appear partisan” and that they’d dealt with difficult guests before, but having Michaels totally throwing them under the bus and not protecting them from network pressure at all was new, and frankly infuriating. There was a flurry of speculative reports at the time with some even alleging that certain weird on-air moments were low-key signs of protest because of how upset they were at being a part of what amounted to political propaganda for a candidate. When it became clear Trump was a spoiled well and there was huge backlash against the episode, michaels allowed an actively hostile tone to later episodes. Although even that’s been a mistake because active hostility isn’t funny.