Saturday Night Live

What's clear about the current version of SNL is that the show has, to a large extent, sacrificed brilliance for consistency — you don't get extreme highs and lows, but you can watch comfortably, knowing that Hartman and company are giving you what David Letterman calls "solid, professional comedy."

Davidson’s standup mixes humility and boorishness in an aw-shucks manner that could use some freshening and tightening, even if Pete’s openness about his improbable fame and ongoing mental health and substance abuse issues keeps him on the windy side of off putting. He was all over the sketches tonight, and did a yeoman’s job, cue cards and all.

Jost and Che proved again that their routine is the best legacy of “SNL”—even the “SNL” of the mind—because it is the rudest, most impolitic and consistently funny part of the show. The rest of the 50th-season opening was at best erratic, but hey, it is an institution with a tradition to maintain.

The show, in short, is once again delivering laughs. So why, for a veteran fan, does the new Saturday Night Live still seem like a pale imitation of its old self? For one thing, the most popular bits -- Carvey's Church Lady, the body-building brothers Hans and Franz -- are the weakest parts of the show, crowd pleasers that depend on makeup gimmicks rather than nimble gags.

A prime example of SNL's conservative approach is Darrell Hammond's Bill Clinton impersonation: technically impeccable, right down to the contrite lower-lip bite, yet lacking any sharp satirical interpretation.

The premiere had all the hallmarks of a relatively low-key, uneven but largely solid, no-fuss episode—except the actual laughs. In that sense, season 50 is off to a very SNL start.

Despite the youthful airs—including a surprise cameo from the world’s biggest pop star—the opening episode felt sadly stale.

Are the writers of SNL all failed Rian Johnson clones because the amount of political cringe 'comedy' in this show is astounding. 'Republicans are all stoopid' seems to be the punchline of so many jokes, if you can call it a 'punchline'. Not that i don't enjoying taking a jab at any political party every once and a while, but the writers at SNL just lack any funny bone to make a clever joke out of it. Whenever they do a skit and one of them is acting as the republican, the character is always 'stupid' and that's the joke. And let's not forget how the Charmin Bear skit was directly ripped off of a huge youtube channel called Joel Haver. They made no attempts to make it original and was pretty much a 1:1 ripoff of Joel's skits and they thought they could get away with it when his channel has 2 million followers. Amy Schumar looks like a one-woman Ocean's Eleven next to these amateur joke thieves.

Used to be funny. Too political now. Another victim of Hollywood's crusade to make us all drones

This used to be a great show,until they turned political. If I want to watch politics I'll watch the news. I want to escape and laugh. Your not funny anymore.

The show was funny for the first 5 years(1975-1980), but it has gone downhill ever since! The political skits of today aren't even funny. They are demeaning, humiliating, crude, and cruel!

Another american show that has lived well past its prime, and with everyone being overly sensitive over any joke made possible, SNL has stooped so low for jokes they are housewife jokes. Nothing is funny and they constantly use pop culture/references to make a joke. Its crap and needs to die.