Back in 2015, former Saturday Night Live head writer and “Weekend Update” co-host Tina Fey was asked to weigh in on the news that then-nominee Donald J. Trump was leading in the polls. “It’s great for comedy!” she said, perhaps thinking fondly of the 2008 election—when her biting Sarah Palin impression not only boosted S.N.L.’s ratings to the highest they had been since Will Ferrell first took on George W. Bush, but also possibly helped derail Palin’s bid and put Barack Obama and Joe Biden in office.

Things didn’t quite work out the same way this time around. S.N.L. certainly owes another ratings surge, a pile of Emmys, revived cultural relevance, and a summer spin-off to the national pastime of roasting Trump. But over a year into the administration, it seems Trump fatigue has truly settled in—and S.N.L. is searching for a confident way forward without the lure of its most reliable punching bag.

It’s no surprise that ratings would be down in Saturday Night Live’s 43rd season. The show’s numbers often spike in a presidential election year, and in the era of Peak TV and general audience atrophy, ratings are lower than ever nearly everywhere. But now that the real Trump is no longer engaged in an all-out war with the show, and even Alec Baldwin seems bored with his Emmy-winning impression, average weekly viewership on S.N.L. has dropped from a 23-year high of 11 million to 9.4 million. Though that’s still a higher rating than the show has had since its ‘94-‘95 season (perhaps due to its new live coast-to-coast schedule), it’s also a steeper post-election drop than usual.

In other words, the infamous “Trump bump” is wearing off—but despite all that, S.N.L. can’t seem to quit him. With only three exceptions this season, including an emotional musical tribute from Jason Aldean after the Las Vegas shooting, the show’s pre-credits cold-open sketches have relied entirely on skewering Trump administration antics. In the most recent episode, an Amy Schumer-hosted Mother’s Day affair, the show seemed almost self-aware about its Trump addiction as members of the cast bantered with their real-life moms, who, perhaps pretending to be more right-leaning than they actually are, lectured their comedian offspring about having had “enough” of the jokes about the president.

The issue isn’t the mere existence of Trump sketches—S.N.L. has always dined out on its Oval Office impressions—so much as how they’re executed. The show’s political material used to provide star-making opportunities for members of its own cast; S.N.L. players like Phil Hartman, Dana Carvey, Chevy Chase, Ferrell, and more all grew their comedy brands with their presidential turns. But by outsourcing the gig to Baldwin, the show essentially divorced its most popular attraction from its heart. Baldwin has reportedly flirted with the idea of taking his Trump elsewhere—something Ferrell did as well, but only years after he left the cast of S.N.L.

With reliable Season 42 targets Kellyanne Conway and Sean Spicer out of the spotlight this year, S.N.L. hasn’t been able to make other political impressions like Jeff Sessions, Robert Mueller, Rudy Giuliani, and Sarah Huckabee Sanders (almost all performed by the show’s undeniable star, Kate McKinnon) stick in the same way. Instead, the show has doubled down on last year’s tactic of outsourcing recurring political impressions to outside stars like Ben Stiller as Michael Cohen, Scarlett Johansson (girlfriend to current head writer Colin Jost) as Ivanka Trump, and Robert De Niro as Mueller. These sketches occasionally make for fun, star-studded viral videos, but there’s not a lot of S.N.L.-specific identity in them—which is a shame, because cast members Cecily Strong, Alex Moffat, and Mikey Day have all perfected their caricatures of the Trump family, and they could be the linchpins of these sketches. A Stormy Daniels cameo may grab headlines, but what does it do to build up the current cast?