Is the ‘SNL’ Cast Still Too Large?

Welcome to the Q&A with TV critic — also known to some TV fans as their “TV therapist” — Matt Roush, who’ll try to address whatever you love, loathe, are confused or frustrated or thrilled by in today’s vast TV landscape. (We know background music is too loud, but there’s always closed-captioning.)

One caution: This is a spoiler-free zone, so we won’t be addressing upcoming storylines here unless it’s already common knowledge. Please send your questions and comments to [email protected] (or use the form at the end of the column) and follow me on Twitter (@TVGMMattRoush). Look for Ask Matt columns on many Tuesdays and some Fridays.

Would Less Be More on SNL?

Question: It was announced right before the season finale that Kate McKinnon, Pete Davidson, Aidy Bryant, and Kyle Mooney were leaving Saturday Night Live. While their talent will be missed, I can’t help but wonder if there should be a greater reduction in the cast. Including the four that are leaving, there are 21 cast members. If you include the Please Don’t Destroy trio, that kicks it up to 24! I will admit for many of the cast, they have made no impression on me. That could be because airtime is limited and they can’t all have time to shine every episode. I feel that if they dropped the cast to below 10, maybe around seven, they could improve the overall quality of the show by providing greater focus on the performers they have and provide greater recognition for them. (They could also go from 90 minutes to an hour, but one thing at a time.) SNL has always been hit-and-miss but having such a large cast doesn’t seem to be helping. What are your thoughts on SNL? — Todd

Matt Roush: It’s an interesting subject, and I’ll admit I often sit through the long roll of opening credits still wondering who some of these people are. While it’s true some in the large cast may never achieve that breakout moment, I like to look at SNL as an incubator for diverse young talent, and you never know who’s going to step up — in recent years, those discoveries have included Bowen Yang, Chloe Fineman, Ego Nwodim, and Heidi Gardner, and I’m also impressed by the classic versatility of performers like Mikey Day and Alex Moffat — just typing their names conjures their interplay as the doofus Trump brothers on Weekend Update. New featured player James Austin Johnson quickly proved his worth as an impressionist this year, and it’s possible more of the new blood will get their opportunities with some of the longtime headliners departing — though I’m glad that it looks like Kenan Thompson and Cicely Strong will be around a while longer. So to answer your question if I think the cast is too big, I’d say yes, probably, though I also see a reason for it. (Especially in those periods when stars moonlight on outside projects, as is becoming more common.) For me, the real underlying issue is that if SNL weren’t such a moneymaker, most everyone agrees that the show would likely be twice as good at two-thirds the length. And then you probably would see a culling of the ensemble.

Finale Frustration

Comment: I think I need TV therapy again after Grey’s Anatomy’s two-hour season finale. I’m in until the end because I’ve invested so much of my life in the show, but this season has been especially frustrating to me, and this season finale was the worst. I know that they had to set up cliffhangers for next year, but I don’t understand why anyone would think this is the way to go. What I’ve wanted to see for several seasons now is Meredith working at Grey Sloan alongside the other characters. That hasn’t happened to a significant degree since her firing at the end of season 15. They split season 16 with Meredith fighting jail time. Then they put her on the death beach in season 17. Now, most of this season was about her and Minnesota.

It seems like they’ve essentially split the narrative again with this finale. I don’t believe for a second characters like Owen, Teddy, Richard, Bailey or the residents who suddenly can’t work at Grey Sloan anymore are going to leave the show. So all this cliffhanger will accomplish is splitting the narrative between whatever they’re doing and the main action at the hospital. I also was hoping Meredith would stay because she wanted to — since we know there’s no show without Ellen Pompeo — and not because she was boxed in. The residency program has been the backbone of this show, and watching it crumble to nothing is hardly a satisfying 400th episode celebration. The flashbacks and reuse of songs from previous episodes just served as a reminder of how much better the show was back then and felt really distracting from this narrative. I guess it was nice to see Jackson and April together and happy, but that’s all I’ve got in favor of this episode. Please help me find some hope and silver lining here because this has been the most unsatisfying season Grey’s has ever had. – Jake

Matt Roush: Worse than the Denny’s ghost debacle? Worse than the season on Covid Limbo Beach? Not sure about that, but I’ll concede that this cliffhanger piled it on more than most, wearyingly so, and I’m not looking forward to watching them dig out of these various dilemmas. But since I too will likely stick with this show to the end because I’ve come this far, I’ll just fall back on my approach to how I watch so much episodic TV, especially broadcast variety: Power through the rough patches to get to the good stuff, which Grey’s at its infrequent best still delivers, thanks to this ensemble and in part to the shared history so many of us have with having watched them for so long, for better or worse. (Honestly, it’s like I’m married to this show and don’t have the strength to call it off.)

Where Did Coroner Go?

Question: I’m wondering what happened to Coroner. It says that the new season premieres this week, but it is not on the schedule and The CW has two other shows airing on Thursday. Will The CW air Coroner at some point? — Tina

Matt Roush: The network moved Coroner off the summer schedule, and the fourth season of the Canadian crime drama is now set to be part of the Sunday lineup in the fall, probably sometime in October. Expect more shakeups as the network is on the block to be sold, which also accounts for the unusual number of series cancellations last month. Pickups from abroad like this are probably also going to become more common.

This Sitcom Threw a Gutter Ball

Question: I had a question about How We Roll. I recently saw that it got canceled after a short run. As an aspiring professional bowler and a huge bowling fan and fan of the PBA for many years, the story of Tom Smallwood is one that I find very inspirational as do many people in my local bowling leagues. Who made the decision to make the actual bowling so hacky? The actor who played Tom couldn’t actually bowl, the actors who played the professional bowlers when he was at tournaments couldn’t actually bowl, and they made them into wacky characters that wore hats or smoked cigarettes or had crazy nicknames, and that is strictly forbidden by the PBA tour as part of the persona clause. I think that is what killed the viewership after the first episode. Did Tom Smallwood himself actually have a say in any of this at all? Also, Tom is a smaller chubby-ish guy who came out of nowhere to live out his dream of supporting his family by bowling, and they hired a 6’8 skinny guy to play him. I guess my main question would be that when I first heard about the show, I got really excited, but I said the bowling had better look real. We talked about it greatly at the bowling alley, and then the bowling was hacky and fake. Things like carrying one ball to a tournament and using rental shoes was an absolute insult to anybody who actually takes bowling seriously. — David B

Matt Roush: I’ll take your word for the sports discrepancies, but the truly fatal flaw of this show was that it just wasn’t funny or fresh. I imagine a decent series could be built around Tom Smallwood’s inspiring life story, but this wasn’t it. And while Smallwood has no official production credit beyond “inspired by,” I can’t imagine he wasn’t consulted during the development of the series.

To Bill Bob, who asked “Is there any hope that How We Roll can get a makeover and return?,” the answer is a pretty definite no, as slots for prime-time comedy are getting scarcer by the season. The last time I remember bowling working on TV was in NBC’s Ed (how I miss it), which isn’t to say this world is now off-limits, but it’s certainly a lost opportunity.

A Surprise Renewal

Question: I am dumbfounded but very pleased with Fox‘s renewal of ultra-low rated Welcome to Flatch, one of the few network comedies I find hilarious. Your thoughts about their decision (considering Fox often kills off shows prematurely)? — Roger S

Matt Roush: Score one for the little guy, and for fans of low-key offbeat comedy. Not an easy sell, but Fox was probably the right network at the right time, since it’s no longer attached to a studio (Disney having swallowed the Fox studio) and must look outside for its programming. According to this deep dive by Nellie Andreeva, production studio Lionsgate must have done some serious deal-making to keep Flatch in business, and it sounds like there may be some creative tweaks to Season 2 that might help it make a little more noise. Regardless, this is another sign that it’s not all about ratings. Shows that look like hits (the Magnum P.I. reboot) are canned for economic reasons, while shows that look like flops earn a second life under the right circumstances. It’s a nutty business.

And Finally …

Comment: Cheers to the season finale of NCIS: LA. The party at the beach was genius and positive with lots of storylines tied up. The best part is they didn’t end with a cliffhanger or a shooting. It was perfect. — Natalie S

Matt Roush: A reminder that even for an episodic action series, sometimes it’s best to leave the audience satisfied at the end of a season, not hanging for the next outlandish twist or dismayed by some bombshell (thinking of crestfallen Max at the end of New Amsterdam). I’d prefer to see more of this sort of season-ender.

That’s all for now. We can’t do this without your participation, so please keep sending questions and comments about TV to [email protected] or shoot me a line on Twitter (@TVGMMattRoush), and you can also submit questions via the handy form below. (Please include a first name with your question.)