Have you noticed something missing from Saturday Night Live this season?

Please, don’t sarcastically say “jokes.” (That’s not even a good joke.)

Over the last few seasons, something major has shifted in Saturday Night Live tonally. Yes, the show became overrun by Alec Baldwin‘s Donald Trump impression last season. That’s been established. Baldwin’s polarizing performance of our current Commander-in-Chief Godzilla-stomps in and out of the show according to weekly news cycles, and it’s up to you if that’s good or bad. But hidden in the shadow of Baldwin’s President Trump are 16 regular cast members with maybe a handful of recurring character sketches between them. There’s, uh, what’s her name? The old actress Kate McKinnon plays in those misogyny-piercing “actress panel” sketches. Then there’s the randy barfly that McKinnon plays in occasional 10-1 sketches. Oh, and “Whiskers R We,” with the lesbian cat lady, whom McKinnon also plays…

Saturday Night Live is not doing recurring character sketches anymore and it almost feels like sacrilege. Gone are the days of the Coneheads and the Nerds, Gumby, Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer, Wayne and Garth, the Church Lady, Matt Foley, the Cheerleaders, Mary Katherine Gallagher, the Boston Teens, Gemini’s Twin, the Falconer, and Kristen Wiig’s suitcase of characters. Today, Saturday Night Live seems to save recurring characters exclusively for the Weekend Update desk. Which isn’t a problem, except it’s a marked break from tradition. The main show is now built around topical satire, high-concept sketches, and pre-taped shorts. Oh, and Trump. Alec Baldwin’s Trump, and the ever-expanding rogue’s gallery of characters embedded within the Trump administration, has seemingly replaced SNL’s usual stable of characters.

So what happened? Is this a good thing? Is it bad? Did Donald Trump kill the Saturday Night Live recurring character?

It’s easy to blame the rise of Trump on the fall of recurring characters. After all, there does seem to be a correlation. As Vulture’s Jesse David Fox explained as far back as this spring, “Because Trump is an all-consuming eater of galaxies, there is also less time and much less attention given to nonpolitical sketches.” The bonkers 2016 election cycle redefined what SNL meant to our nation. No longer just a passing, skewed reflection of what was happening in the news, the show seemed to be trolling Trump in real time. It became a Trump-focused comedy show. Because of this the SNL cast’s most popular recurring characters tend to be political figures. A friend of mine pointed out that Kate McKinnon’s Hillary Clinton and Kellyanne Conway are her most recognizable “characters” now. Elsewhere, Beck Bennett started to grab some heat after he started appearing as a blow-hard, beef cake version of Vladimir Putin. And if I had to bet, I would wager that most casual viewers would probably recognize Featured Players Mikey Day and Alex Moffatt as the hapless Trump sons before clocking them as a) one of the skeletons in the David S. Pumpkins sketch (which Day co-wrote) or b) as the “Guy Who Just Bought A Boat.”

Maybe the “recurring character sketch” is just another one of our institutions under fire in the Trump era, or maybe it’s run its course as a comedy trend. When you look at the non-political sketches that have sparked the most interest in the last year, they do tend to be the stand alone high-concept ones. You know, stuff like the pre-taped sketches Julio Torres writes, like “Papyrus” or “Wells For Boys,” or last week’s intensely silly “Za.” It could just be that this current crop of Saturday Night Live writers and performers aren’t as interested in playing what could be (derisively described as) one-note recurring characters as they are in playing with comedic form. I mean, as far as I know, no one is telling the cast and crew of SNL that they can’t attempt to create the 21st century version of “Coffee Talk.” Maybe they just don’t want to! It could just be a reflection of how comedy has evolved in the last five years.

So maybe Trump’s to blame, and maybe the zeitgeist is also a key, but there have been hit characters and recurring sketches in the last two years. The problem is they don’t seem to belong to the SNL cast members; they belong to the celebrity guests. For instance, Tom Hanks sheepishly took on the role of David S. Pumpkins last October and the goofy character instantly became meme. The role even inspired an animated special this year. But David S. Pumpkins belongs solely to Tom Hanks. Just like Sean Spicer now belongs to Melissa McCarthy, and Trump to Alec Baldwin. Heck, even the recurring sketch about an alien abduction seems to belong to Ryan Gosling and not the sketch’s lynch-pin, Kate McKinnon.

There is a case to be made for the return of ye olde recurring character sketch — and it might ironically come from SNL‘s celebrity hosts themselves. Before Lady Bird star Saoirse Ronan hosted SNL a few weeks back, she made the usual rounds on NBC’s late night shows, where she showed off that she was funny, charming, and more than a little bit obsessed with the legendary comedy/variety show. When Seth Meyers asked her about her favorite sketches, Ronan said, “I love all of Kristen Wiig’s sketches. She’s the best. So, Target Lady, and Sue, and Penelope — ‘just kidding’ — they’re just all so good.”

Ronan was specifically praising recurring character sketches, and she’s not crazy for liking them. Those types of sketches survived for so long on SNL for a number of reasons. In the days before YouTube, it was the kind of sketch that helped new comedians build up their reputation. The repetition of the characters’ appearances helped solidify them for the casual viewer at home. The sketches also double as a deft way to ease a host into the frenzy of the show. Clearly understanding the general comedic beats of a sketch can help a non-professional sketch performer “get” the joke faster. Recurring character sketches fit this bill to a tee. You don’t need to explain the game of something when you can just show a clip. Finally, a really good character sketch can say something about the zeitgeist, or it can satirize a common sociological strain. Yet, when Ronan hosted Saturday Night Live, she didn’t get to be in a single one because SNL isn’t really doing those anymore.

Saturday Night Live‘s greatest gift is its elasticity. It’s able to meet the demands of the moment, even after it has seemingly shrunken away from them. Maybe this is just a lull before a storm of new recurring characters – ones we’ll get immediately sick of. But something is missing from the current season of SNL. It’s a new canon of comedic characters.

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