SNL UK’s Flexible Runtime Solves Longstanding SNL Problem

Depends if it's any good. That said, Sky make a lot of shows and I have no idea who watches them. Never heard anyone talking about 'A League of their Own' or the Buzzcocks revival tbh.

You speak for all of the UK?

What a f****** ridiculous thing to say, nobody wants a new sketch show? It might work, it might not but it's just a comedy show.

You should give it a chance, I've been trying to convince everyone with Sky or Now.TV to give it a shot. It's a great opportunity for ten new stand-ups and outside of panel shows comedy in the UK is dying on its feet. It's a miracle anyone green-lit this show.

What are you claiming nobody wants, exactly? A UK version of SNL? or flexible runtimes? Because I want both of those things.

You seem confident for someone who is talking out of their ass

You're getting downvoted but you're right. Tina Fey being the first host just shows how out of touch it is. Tina Fey is amazing, but if someone is a fan of Tina Fey, they are alreadly likely a fan of SNL, or at least know of it. She's essentially famous for SNL. Sure that makes sense, but will it attract a larger mainstream audience? They have 1 chance to make a good first impression, and I can't see this being it. Snl is pretty big over in the UK already, and how many of those fans watch the USA snl and think "man i wish we had a uk version" The UK version should be completely different, akin to ant and decs Saturday night takeaway (obviously not that exactly) but it needs it's own uk identity. Uk comedy is unmatched, and there are so many talented uk comedians who can contribute, but it's likely going to just be a carbon copy of the usa show. Hopefully I'm wrong, but i doubt it

10 to 1 sketches are the best, especially if Will Forte was involved

Agreed, they do a lot of those weird "groups at a restaurant" gag that I'm down with. I also like to watch it with a running editorial in my head that is under the assumption that they had something half baked they would try to figure out.

Yep, completely agree, and sometimes even those out-there skits really take flight. Best example IMO is the series of P*** Stars skits, with Vanessa Bayer as Breckie and Cecily Strong as Breckie’s never-named friend selling high-end stuff like [Sebosski Cryssals](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dNP143k11bU), [Lampertinis](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=llKJdbQ0cOc), [Moey Chambin Champagne](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zw4zlvTlaI0), and [Manual Blondick shoes](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U9G3qtOUIpo). It started out with the Sebosski one, then took off from there, and each one was always the last skit of the night. (I saw the Sebosski one live when it premiered, and that is hands down the hardest I’ve ever laughed at an SNL skit!)

that's still a problem of run time if the other 80 minutes aren't good. Technically Tim Robinson solved this by taking a lot of time to carefully craft fifteen minutes of sketch comedy in 90 minute bursts every couple of years. Much as many reddit users seem to bemoan the loss of the 26 episode season, it's very difficult to make that many episodes with only a summer break and have it be good.

They also cut skits for time, and sometimes release them years later. I think that's kind of the point.

Unfortunately they encourage this not to fill time but to limit the number of set changes required.

I asked on the sub, it's for transitions between sketches and even they hate it.

I think this is one of the biggest problems with a lot of ‘traditional’ American comedy over the last 15 years or so, they just don’t know how to end a skit. They go on for soo long.

God yes. It beats you over the head with the concept.

I’ve actually noticed the reverse with watching the original Channel 4 *Whose Line is it Anyway?* from the 80s/90s; compared to Drew Carey/Aisha Tyler on the US versions, Clive Anderson on the UK version can sometimes be a bit too quick on the buzzer with ending games/sketches IMO.

I like the show, I kinda agree but the main issue tends to be lacking a good ending, they rarely go out on a high.

That’s always been my issue with SNL. Every sketch is beaten to death. It really has always needed tightening up to be funny to an international audience.

They coulda saved a lot of money by just having a blank screen and an announcer going, "Picture a cat driving a car. Okay, now imagine an unfrozen caveman lawyer."

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According to the article that’s exactly what they are doing. It still caps out at 90 minutes at most but can be as short as 60 minutes. Sky is estimating each episode will be around 75 minutes. Hopefully that means less padding.

That's what I was thinking too except "oh good, they don't have to have 5 minute skits repeating the same joke over and over"

Or if there is a good band or musical group on, give them another song

“Actually this week we couldn’t think of anything that good, gonna skip this week”

Nobody wants 60-90 minutes of that shit, this is going to go down like the Hindenburg over here.

At the time that Ted made the statement, Nightline was live to tape and affiliates still had layers of staff for such a rare situation. Now you're lucky if there's one person babysitting the broadcast feed on-site, and most stations are now 100% automated following the 10/11PM newscast. 

No it's not. This isn't an award show where random shit happens and you need to wait for the crowd to simmer down. It's a sketch show where the vast majority of sketches will be forgotten before the show is even finished. Nobody's bad sketch or stand-up routine would ever be fixed by letting it run an extra 5 minutes. It is only fixed with reworks and rewrites to make the joke actually happen. Letting it stew for extra time doesn't solve any issue, it just lets bad material run longer than it should because they couldn't be bothered to make it good.

But isn't this dictated more by ad breaks, and the concept itself, than the run time?

I wouldn't really say I view it either way. I just don't think removing skits automatically means we're left with quality, nor do I think there is a problem with some things getting cut for time because they're usually available if you care. Though I absolutely believe they sometimes let things that will do better on social media get cut.

60-90 minutes of comedians doing sketches.. it's going to get ripped to bits over here

Exactly, over twenty years ago and there hasn't been a successful one since.

It's the format, we haven't had a successful sketch show here since The Fast Show, Little Britain etc. Everything since then has been a massive failure so something as lame as the SNL format has no chance.