Saturday Night Live returns this weekend to kick off its 41st season, and there will probably be two stars of the show – host and musical guest Miley Cyrus, and the increasingly chaotic presidential race. Even in an era crowded with late-night shows and real-time Twitter jokes, SNL’s topical material is closely scrutinized, and the show will be gearing up to churn out election sketches for the next season and a half. With all of last year’s cast returning, and with budding stars such as Kate McKinnon, Aidy Bryant and Vanessa Bayer, the show has a chance to shine.
When it comes to presidential election material, SNL is on something of an on/off cycle. The 2000 election coverage was remarkable – who will ever forget Will Ferrell’s “strategery” and Darrell Hammond’s droning Al Gore? – while 2004 lacked memorable moments. They came back swinging in 2008 with ex-cast member Tina Fey’s perfect Sarah Palin, but Obama’s relatively easy victory in 2012 didn’t give them as much to work with.
What makes election-year coverage work for SNL is big characters to build on – Bill Clinton, George W Bush and Palin worked perfectly, while John Kerry, Barack Obama and Mitt Romney were all slightly too grounded to be properly spoofed. In theory, this is a flaw in the format, but it’s one they’re unlikely to fix if they keep getting presidential hopefuls who give them so much fodder. Enter Donald Trump.
It’s already been been announced that Taran Killam will be taking on Trump this season. Killam is a solid impressionist and has become one of the show’s all-important chameleons; in fact, the show might find itself in a bit of bind this year if Trump’s reign continues and they’re forced to choose between the Donald and his other impressions, including candidates Marco Rubio and Rand Paul, plus the departing House speaker, John Boehner. (Although it’ll be little easier when Trump shows up himself, which he almost certainly will.)
The established stable of political characters includes McKinnon’s diabolically hilarious Hillary Clinton, and Jay Pharoah’s precise, if unremarkable, take on Obama. Former cast member and current announcer Darrell Hammond, who played Trump for many years, will return as Bill Clinton. Bobby Moynihan has played both Chris Christie and Ted Cruz in the past, but poll numbers will dictate how much we see of them.
SNL would have struggled to find enough bodies to portray the last Republican debates – 13 candidates plus a moderator uses up almost the entire 16-person cast. (SNL’s much-pressured move to diversify its cast means they no longer have enough white male actors to cover the GOP candidate pool.) So they’ll need to focus on major figures, notably Carly Fiorina, Ben Carson and Bernie Sanders. Fiorina will probably go to the rubber-faced Bayer, who had a run at Clinton a few years back and seems a natural fit for the former Hewlett Packard CEO. Carson will go to Kenan Thompson, who played Herman Cain back in 2012, and Sanders will probably fall to featured player Beck Bennett.
Whether Cyrus as host will jump into the political material is up for grabs (she has played Michele Bachmann.) This is her third time as host; her first in 2011 coincided with her transition from Disney star to party girl. Reviews were mixed, ranging from “The host just sucked,” (Erik Voss at Splitsider), to “actually did pretty well” (Margaret Lyons at Vulture). Her second hosting gig, in 2013, came shortly after her infamous “twerkgate” MTV VMA performance and was a marked improvement.
Those appearances, and other late-night show bits, have shown that she’s got a decent sense of humor and has a willingness to poke fun at her ever-evolving public image. That combination has clearly endeared her to the SNL bigwigs: she was one of four musical performers on the show’s 40th anniversary special, alongside Paul McCartney, Kanye West and Paul Simon.
That Cyrus is returning to do double duty is no surprise – fresh off hosting the VMAs, she’s got a bit more joke-telling experience under her belt, and she’s got some new songs to show off from her latest free album, Miley Cyrus and Her Dead Petz. That she’s up first feels like a unfortunate ratings move, given that the next two hosts they’ve got lined up – Amy Schumer and Tracy Morgan – are both experienced sketch comics whose appearances are highly anticipated by comedy fans. But between Cyrus and Trump, we can expect a premiere episode that’s all about attention-grabbing at all costs.
Saturday Night Live starts 11:30 EDT 3 October
