SNL Finale Promises Fall Yuks

It’s been a long, sometimes-bumpy road for Saturday Night Live, Tom Shales writes in the Washington Post, but the 33rd season finale showed the cast—and guest John McCain—in fine comic form, and was a ratings success to boot. SNL generally thrives in highly political times, and Shales feels the current cast is well-equipped to make the best of this extraordinary election.

"While the current cast lacks a powerhouse ringleader like Will Ferrell," Shales writes, "the comic talent seems more evenly distributed and the dead weight more scarce than in many a season past. As has been noted here and elsewhere, the cast is especially strong on the female side, which in the past had been the weaker sex." (More Saturday Night Live stories.)