The sixth TV show: #226 Saturday Night Live
I've been trying to keep up with Saturday Night Live before, and trying to go through its backlog, so this was mostly extra good fun. I tried to pick out some episodes from different eras of the show to see how things changes, what happened in the different eras and how good it stays.
Is it worth than it ever was? Not really. There are up and down seasons, but it desn't feel like it's some consistent downwards trend. The original cast was incredibly strong, and the supposedly worst episode was dreadful. but for the most part episodes stay funny and it's always worth trying for that show that really hits it home.
In a sense, it's the cast rotation that keeps it fresh. When they stay too long, patterns become ingrained and characters become stale. Seeing a new cast member come in may mean they disappear soon, not making an impact, but others stay and bring in their own new ideas. In the time we've watched actively, people like Taran Killam, Kate McKinnon and TIm Robinson have delighted us, but just watching the sample episodes have shown us so much more - just seeing Julia Louis-Dreyfus almost get started is already interesting.