- Andy Samberg hosted Saturday Night Live‘s finale.
The 39th season of Saturday Night Live ended as it began—with a former cast member front and center as host. The Tina Fey-Andy Samberg sandwich (with a little Jimmy Fallon mustard in the middle for good measure) may have been in part to anchor this season of major transition. With heavy hitters Fred Armisen, Bill Hader, and Jason Sudeikis gone, a pair of new Weekend Update hosts behind the desk after Seth Meyers’s February departure, and a total of eight new cast member by season’s end, the direction of the show was up in the air. And in a season of hits and misses, this finale was a solid reminder of what makes the show good.
This is the first cast in the show’s history in which no one was born before the premiere in 1975. That youth, combined with a transitional cast and technology’s increased presence, will soon render the show unrecognizable from your parents’ SNL. But that’s what’s always made it great—it’s a representation of the cultural landscape at any given time. This season proved more than ever that today’s landscape is digital.
