Saturday Night Live (SNL) has been a late-night comedy staple for over 45 years, but recently the show has been less than exceptional. The nature of the show means that it often has cast members coming and going season to season, so you would expect new and fresh comedians to be at the forefront of the show, but that does not seem to be the case. I feel that SNL has become out-of-touch with its main audience in both its cast and comedy.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I love SNL, but that doesn’t mean I can’t be critical of the direction the show is taking. When SNL started, NBC was simply looking for a show to fill the late-night Saturday spot, so Lorne Michaels got together a group of relevant comedians to host a sketch comedy show. Obviously, the show was a success as it has gone on to run for 48 seasons in.

However, I have felt that recently SNL has been significantly declining in quality over the last few seasons. While there is something to be said about a show going on for 47 years, I think the way the show is run has a way of keeping it fresh and up to date (or at least it’s supposed to). Of course, comedy is subjective and all that so if you enjoy SNLs recent seasons then that’s fine.  I feel as if the current era of SNL is its worst in recent years.

For example, SNL recently did a sketch poking fun at the Try Guys situation. Anyone who is aware of the situation might guess that they made fun of the irony of Ned “I love my wife” Fulmer cheating on his wife, but instead, they made fun of Eugene, Keith and Zach’s reactions and response video. The sketch wasn’t horrible; it just seemed like the misunderstood what the situation was or who to poke fun at and to be honest, I have seen funnier TikToks about the scandal.

That is one of many sketches that illustrate how SNL is trying to appeal to younger people, but the lack of understanding and self-awareness is apparent. When SNL was originally created, NBC wanted it to target a demographic of ages 18-35. Recently the show has been hitting the upper area of that range, even with its head writers, whose ages range from age 32-48.

It actually isn’t uncommon for the show to dip in ratings after a really good era, but something about these recent seasons has been causing the show to lose viewers fast. In fact, season 47s opening show had the lowest viewership of any first episode the show has had with almost a 50% decrease in viewership from season 46.

After losing 4 of their strongest cast members last season (Kate McKinnon, Pete Davidson, Kyle Moony and Aidy Bryant) obviously SNL is going to have a transitional period where they have to get used to these changes. Even last season, when they still had these cast members, they weren’t doing too well. One of the current cast members, Kenan Tompson, has even said “50 is a good year to stop at.”

To me, it just seems that SNL doesn’t really appeal to who it wants to appeal to anymore. Whether it be bad jokes, or the occasional controversial guest, its ratings have only been going down. I hope that some of the newer cast members that have joined this season will bring a new air to the show, but we will just have to see.