Saturday Night Live could be losing three cast members in addition to the four who have already announced their departures.
Melissa Villasenor, Alex Moffat, and Aristotle Athari will reportedly not be joining the 48th season cast, following the departures of Kate McKinnon, Aidy Bryant, Kyle Mooney, and Pete Davidson. The show hasn’t announced a premiere date, but it is due to begin in the fall. Last year, it premiered on Oct 2. NBC’s other fall shows premiere on Sept 25.
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Athari, formerly an actor on HBO’s Silicon Valley, has only spent one season on the cast, while Moffat and Villasenor have been on-screen cast members since 2016. Villasenor gained recognition on the short-form video app Vine before joining the cast. Moffatt previously performed at various improv theaters and comedy clubs in Chicago.
This report comes less than a week after former cast member Rob Schneider appeared on Glenn Beck’s podcast to “crap on his own show.” Schneider described the moment he thought Saturday Night Live had lost its comedic touch: when then-Saturday Night Live actress Kate McKinnon dressed as Hilary Clinton and sang “Hallelujah” following the 2016 election — without a joke at the end.
“It’s over. I’s over. It’s not going to come back,” Schneider said of his reaction. “It’s gone. You can take the comedy routines, the comedic indoctrination process, happening with each of the late-night hosts, and you can exchange them with each other. That’s how you know it’s not interesting anymore. It’s not an independent voice anymore. It’s just all indoctrination by comedic imposition.”
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Current cast member Kenan Thompson also alluded that ending the program during the 2024-2025 season “might not be a bad idea” on Charlamagne tha God’s podcast. Thompson will celebrate his 20th anniversary as a cast member next year as the longest-tenured member of its cast ever.
Saturday Night Live’s 47th season premiere recorded only 4.9 million total viewers, while its 46th season premiere in 2020 raked in over 8.2 million viewers, per a Nielsen report. Still, the 2020-2021 season was the most-watched television entertainment program among those between the ages of 18 and 49.
