There’s literally nothing we like more than Saturday Night Live retrospectives. Okay, well, maybe we like pizza, beer, the Muppets, 1986 Mets retrospectives and maps more. But really that’s about it. And it’s close. Which is why we were so extremely disappointed in last week’s “new” two-hour prime-time special SNL Backstage. We were eager for the broadcast all week, making sure to set our DVRs before heading out to Philadelphia for the weekend. We were far more excited about it than any regular episode of SNL all season, save for Jim Carrey’s return. And from those great expectations came a great letdown.
The show was billed as, or so it seemed to us, a look behind the scenes at SNL, which we thought meant going beyond the origin of sketches and past cast changes and instead delving further into the process of the show, bringing us stories and details not found in the previous behind the scenes specials (SNL in the 80s: Lost and Found, SNL in the 90s: Pop Culture Nation, SNL in the 00s: Time and Again). Indeed, judging from the promo, we were going to be treated to some new never heard before insights and, most intriguing to us, a glimpse at how they pull up a live show with so many set and costume changes. What we thought we’d be getting was a truly illuminating look under the hood of SNL, an expose on all its moving parts.
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But, basically, we were lied to.
More on the betrayal, and the only three minutes of truly new and interesting material.
Jumped The Snark 