SNL UK: episode 1

[Doug Eastick]

Mini review...

1. There is swearing.  It's perfectly placed.  Adam, is this over the air on Sky? Is swearing allowed OTA after a certain hour? 

2. Most content was 6/10 with some bits better. 

3. Weekend update was decent.

4. Minor technical production mistakes (mic or camera switch delay) but otherwise all good.

The fact that Tina Fey was there for the first episode leads me to believe that she will take over from Lorne.

/Doug
eas...@mcd.on.ca

[Jim Ellwanger]

It airs on Sky One, which is a pay channel.

I'm surprised Mark Jeffries didn't already jump in with a long explanation of the "watershed," but briefly: yes, in the U.K., swearing is allowed OTA after a certain hour. (Heck, as those of us who have had trouble sleeping in British hotel rooms may be able to attest, topless women advertising phone-sex lines are allowed OTA after a certain hour.)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watershed_(broadcasting)#United_Kingdom

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[Adam Bowie]

As Jim mentions, we have "the watershed" at 9pm where rules are relaxed. And there's no distinction between free-to-air TV and cable/satellite TV. Sky's the latter. I think the US's rules are pretty unique in that respect.

The only slight difference is that if you schedule programmes with sex/violence/bad language earlier in the day, there has to be some kind of safety lock on the channel e.g. a PIN. But of course, these days vast numbers of the audience will be watching on demand anyway, so it's all becoming much less relevant.

I'm mixed on the first episode. I didn't watch it live, and since it goes out on Sky One (a channel that has been renamed a bit too much recently, like the HBO Max app), it would never achieve the kind of linear numbers that it would if it was on a free-to-air channel like the original does on NBC. So I suspect the cut through is going to have to come via social clips. It definitely popped up on my YouTube.

From what I can tell, it's a like-for-like copy. The set looks the same. There's a band. There's the massively overlong title credits where every cast member is named. But they've definitely spent the money on it. Good production values, and they're using the biggest studio in Television Centre (formerly BBC Television Centre, but now essentially a studio for hire). 

But I'm not the world's biggest fan of SNL anyway. The sketches in the British version, like the original, still go on for way too long. So if one misses, you're stuck for five minutes with a dud. The cold open about Keir Starmer not wanting to phone Trump was really weak, and while Tina Fey was good, I still don't really understand why they didn't get a big British name to do it. Weekend Update, the only bit of the original that I think is good, is OK here. But like a lot of this episode, it's going to take time to gel. The best sketch for me was the one with the social media movie junket interviewer fawning over the actors in a new movie, before saying that their new film sucked. Hammed Animashaun is the interviewer, and he's good in his own British sitcom, Black Ops. The oddest sketch was the Hamnet one (few will have actually seen this film even here), which seemed to be an unacknowledged pastiche of the very good Ben Elton sitcom from a few years ago, Upstart Crow (Britbox in the US).

I'll stick with it, but I'm not yet blown away. I see they've upped the order from a paltry six episodes to now eight episodes, which still doesn't feel like a big enough vote of confidence. But this will take time to breathe and gain traction. They've got Wolf Alice as musical guests next week, and I'm a fan of them. So I'll watch for that reason at least.

Adam

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[Tom Wolper]

My mini-review:

1. It looks and feels like it came from an SNL factory. When they first announced it, it wasn’t clear whether SNL UK would be a sketch and music show or a copy of the specific way the US SNL is made. Being the latter, it made sense to have Tina Fey as the first host, both as a bridge to the original and also as a calming force to the writers and performers during the week. If people started panicking during Thursday rehearsal that the show would never be ready on time she could calm them down and say it’s always like this and the show gets done in time.

2. The swearing was apt and not just there to shock. If anything it shows how, in this age of cable and streaming TV in the US, just how unnatural it is to tiptoe around language sensibilities. Hearing the language in the British show is a relief that they can express themselves and not a feeling of naughty transgression.

3. The show had some rough edges which I think comes from the cast and writers not having worked together before. The performers in the cast need to learn how to play off each other and hopefully eight shows is enough time to make it happen.

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[Adam Bowie]

One interesting thing that's worth mentioning is that Sky is currently trying to buy ITV's channels business. ITV is divided between its linear channels with its streaming platform ITVx, and its ITV Studios production arm which has become the more important part of the business. Sky's offer is for the channels business only. ITV Studios would remain.

That would mean that Sky could end up owning the linear ITV1 TV channel where SNL UK would much more naturally fit. 

One other thing to note is that while Saturday night television in the US is basically a barren waste ground, in the UK, BBC1 has Premier League highlights every Saturday night in Match of the Day. Because only some EPL games are broadcast live on TV, and all on premium channels or streaming services, Match of the Day is still a popular show. It gets around 2.5m viewers across broadcast and streaming and about a 25% share of viewing in its 10:30PM - 12:00AM slot. SNL UK is up against that. The first SNL UK episode got about 230,000 viewers live, a number that will obviously grow with on demand viewing, and especially social clips. But on the night it's about one tenth the football audience.

But one way or another, the truth is the SNL UK is going to live or die on how it does on social media - how those clips end up being shared, and how culturally relevant it does or doesn't become. You have to have a show to clip from. But it's really about those clips...

Adam

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