‘SNL50: Beyond Saturday Night’ Review: A Sweet, Rose-Colored Celebration of the Magic Behind ‘SNL’
Nostalgia baiting has become so common, it’s erupted into nano-genres all its own. Take documentary filmmaking. Where once there were arguments over what was left out, what was put in, and what constituted unbiased storytelling, now the landscape is dominated by celebrity self-profiles where viewers can consider themselves lucky if the subject of the (puff) piece isn’t also a producer with final cut. What do “Beckham,” “The Greatest Love Story Never Told,” and “Sly” have to do with nostalgia? Typically, to get famous enough to merit your own “documentary,” you need a body of work that people already love — hence, even series like “The Last Dance” or films like “Steve! (Martin): A Documentary in 2 Pieces” traffic in nostalgia, tempting viewers to revisit the glory days of such-and-such or so-and-so via interviews with the talking heads of today.
Enter: “SNL50: Beyond Saturday Night,” a four-part documentary series produced by Peacock, the streaming home to every season of “Saturday Night Live” and which shares a parent company with NBC. Mercifully, the doc’s title starts with a reference to “Saturday Night Live’s” upcoming 50th anniversary spectacular, making it perfectly clear well before you click play that what follows won’t be a feet-to-the-fire interrogation of the legendary sketch comedy’s notable flaws. “Beyond Saturday Night” doesn’t touch on heinous hosting hires like Donald Trump and Elon Musk, nor does it address the plagiarism accusations, cast member hirings and firings, or unsettling working conditions that have blighted the series’ comic brilliance over the last 50 years.
More from IndieWire
Instead, each of the four episodes emanates admiration for a TV institution, which, as soon as you’ve properly adjusted your expectations, works just fine. Stars abound, old faces resurface, new and archival footage is nicely balanced, and anyone who’s not already a die-hard “SNL” fan will feel tugged ever closer to a show that’s bridged every generation since the Baby Boomers were born. Sure, when it’s teasing insider access — going under the bleachers with Lorne Michaels during Saturday afternoon rehearsals or witnessing unreleased audition tapes of favorites who made it (like Amy Poehler) and others who didn’t (like Stephen Colbert) — the episodes can feel like they’re happening at a safe remove. (Lorne isn’t sharing much from his bunker, and the tapes are edited down to a few choice seconds.) But the burgeoning feeling of wanting to get closer, to enmesh yourself within 30 Rockefeller Center, to become a part of “SNL” in the way these talking heads once were or are still, is exactly what the documentary is going for — and what most viewers are hoping to feel themselves.
With Oscar winner Morgan Neville (“20 Feet From Stardom,” “Piece by Piece”) onboard as an executive producer and a different director for each hourlong episdoe, “Beyond Saturday Night” isn’t an all-inclusive examination of “SNL’s” markedly massive history, but an incisive peek at four critical cogs: the casting process, a week with the writers, an oral history of Will Ferrell’s “Cowbell” sketch, and a reevaluation of the “weird,” pivotal year that was Season 11.
Episode 1, “Five Minutes,” is titled after the “SNL” auditions that required potential cast members to run through five characters in five minutes. “The truth is if they can’t handle five minutes in front of everyone, live, then you’re wasting your time,” Ayala Cohen says, a former talent scout and executive producer. The episode comes alive in splitscreen images of cast members then and now, as they watch their original audition tapes while offering commentary about how they felt, what they did to prepare, or whether their decades-old jokes still work. “I don’t know what Lorne and them saw, but they saw something,” Tracy Morgan says. “I cannot believe I did that, just so far that that’s a lot of pressure,” Heidi Gardner says. “Every character that Kristen Wiig auditioned with has been on the show,” Mike Shoemaker says, a former talent coordinator and executive producer.
Director Robert Alexander does an excellent job putting you in the aspiring stars’ shoes, not only by including plenty of cast members discussing how nervous they were, but also detailing the step-by-step process itself. At one point, while Ego Nwodim is describing waiting in the green room, getting called in, and suddenly finding herself on stage, Alexander cuts to a first-person shot of the stage manager walking “you” into Studio 8H. There’s even a shot of a monitor on wheels rolling down the hall, wobbling anxiously as Nwodim’s onscreen interview relates her own sudden, shaky-legged journey.
Insights from legends like Marci Klein, the head of talent from 1995-2012, and her successor, Lindsay Shookus, balance out sweet if repetitious memories from an array of “SNL” cast members. Alexander wisely pivots into what happens after the casting process, too, noting how various “SNL” members felt like they were still auditioning years into their run on the show. “Every week feels like you have to prove yourself again,” Poehler says — which isn’t a drawback for everyone. In Episode 2, “Written By: A Week Inside the SNL Writers’ Room,” Tina Fey recalls how rewriting the sketches with the rest of the staff could be “tough” and “grouchy,” with her peers making fun of her jokes, her selections, and her run of show. “You would leave the room fully knowing that that writers’ room was taking a shit on it while you were gone,” Fey says, before failing to restrain herself from adding: “I don’t know if it’s the same anymore, and if it’s not… maybe it should get that way again a bit. I think it’s good.”
There’s no telling if Fey’s version of the writers’ rooms still exists, even after spending a week with the Season 50 writing staff (for Ayo Edebiri’s episode with musical guest Jennifer Lopez, the latter of whom goes unseen). What older ex-staffers remembers as gleeful chaos — “Everyone made out with everyone, boned everyone, it was beautiful,” Emily Spivey says of the ’70s seasons — comes across as regimented inventing in the here and now. Monday is for meeting the host and brainstorming. Tuesday is when the first drafts get written, long into the wee hours of Wednesday, when they’re read to the room and winnowed down by the showrunners. Thursday is for rewrites and pre-production, Friday is staging, blocking, and read-throughs, and then Saturday sees the final cutdown and run of show, courtesy of Mr. Michaels.
Seeing the sausage get made carries its own gleeful fascination, but Episode 2 (directed by Marshall Curry) is at its best when looking back. Fey’s comments about benefiting from an environment that people today would call “hostile” or “toxic” deserves a bit more unpacking than a Peacock-produced promo for “SNL 50” is willing to give. Michaels himself doesn’t participate in three of the four episodes, which leaves a rather sizable hole in a process-driven episode like “Written By.” (Thankfully, he does sit for an interview regarding his return to “SNL” for the much-maligned Season 11.) Bob Odenkirk is so thoughtful and earnest, you’re better off rewinding to listen to his tutelage again than hoping to glean anything comparable from the modern footage.
Depth of feeling is the doc’s saving grace. The audition episode ends with Bobby Moynihan fighting back tears as he remembers the night Seth Meyers called to tell him he made it. “It was everything, and it still is,” Moynihan says, before conveying his appreciation for his role on “SNL” with moving, childlike simplicity: “I loved that show, and I was on it.” During an aptly silly episode about how Will Ferrell’s cowbell sketch came to be — complete with an origin story for the cowbell itself and a fight between Blue ?yster Cult producers over who really played the cowbell in “(Don’t Fear) The Reaper” — you get moments of Ferrell asking if it’s OK to laugh at his own sketch and Dana Carvey breaking down why “cowbell” is the perfect comedic word for Christopher Walken’s unique intonations. (Walken, however, turned down director Neil Berkeley’s invitation to participate, the motivations for which are explained when Ferrell remembers the Oscar-winning actor telling him the sketch “ruined my life.”)
But no one, and I mean no one, expresses their adoration for “SNL” more convincingly, enthusiastically, or verbosely than Tom Hanks. Popping up in the final episode to recount his first time hosting, Hanks describes getting the call to join “SNL” as “the single most exciting thing that has happened in my career. […] Saying it’s a dream come true doesn’t do it justice. It’s a fantasy made real.” For Hanks to offer such effusive praise isn’t all that surprising given he’s returned to host nine more times, made numerous cameo appearances, and generally appreciates great comedy, but for Wes Anderson’s new favorite star to make the time to be interviewed for the fourth episode of a Peacock documentary series about one disparaged season of “SNL” — a season with 20 other hosts who didn’t sit down to talk about it — speaks volumes of the man and the show he adores.
“Saturday Night Live” means so much, to so many people, that even when “SNL 50: Beyond Saturday Night” avoids addressing anything that may have complicated those feelings, its thorough devotion to “SNL’s” better nature proves hard to shake.
Grade: B-
“SNL50: Beyond Saturday Night” premieres Thursday, January 16 on Peacock. All four episodes will be released at once.
Best of IndieWire
Sign up for Indiewire's Newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
Solve the daily Crossword
