‘Saturday Night Live’ is back

Eighteen days after 9/11, New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani took the stage for the first episode of “Saturday Night Live” since the terrorist attacks at Studio 8H inside NBC’s Rockefeller Center headquarters. It was a solemn cold open. Giuliani, flanked by firefighters and police officers, implored viewers to carry on in the face of tragedy. Paul Simon, wearing an FDNY hat, performed a melancholic rendition of “The Boxer”.

But the grave mood was leavened with humor, leading to one of the most memorable moments in “Saturday Night Live”‘s modern era. The premiere of “Saturday Night Live”‘s 46th season this weekend will take place against a similar backdrop of national mourning and crisis. More than 200,000 people across the country have lost their lives to covid. Millions have been infected.

The economy is devastated. President Donald Trump and first lady Melania, meanwhile, have tested positive for covid, throwing the White House and the presidential campaign into turmoil. The challenges for America’s marquee sketch show are stark. The degree of difficulty just went up a hundredfold. “Saturday Night Live” did a show with anthrax in the building.

“Saturday Night Live” did a show after 9/11.

That is what “Saturday Night Live” has always done. To its audience, it is really important “Saturday Night Live” show up. But this year, even showing up, and in particular, returning to the high-stakes live format, is no simple matter. The covid pandemic, which forced “Saturday Night Live” to suspend live broadcasts in March 2020 and wrap its previous season with three remotely-produced episodes, has thrust the show into a tangle of unprecedented creative obstacles and logistical hurdles.

There are numerous challenges that manifest themselves in everything, from the construction of sets, makeup, wardrobe, to the choreography that goes on backstage. It is not simple, and it is going to require significant adjustments. The jarring new Covid-era reality for the late-night institution was plain to see in a pair of photos posted on “Saturday Night Live”‘s official Instagram account.

The first photo shows Chris Rock, the host of the season premiere, leafing through a script while wearing a white mask. The second photo provides a zoomed-out view of cast and crew members individually seated at folding tables spaced 6 feet apart. In the covid-era, producers of late-night comedy shows and daytime talk shows have come up with various ways to create a sense of normalcy.

“The Tonight Show” returned to 30 Rock without a studio audience.

Stephen Colbert and Trevor Noah host their shows from their homes. “The Kelly Clarkson Show” features a virtual audience. “Saturday Night Live” is moving forward with plans for a “limited in-studio audience”. “Saturday Night Live” was working closely with New York Governor Andrew Cuomo’s office on the details. Cuomo’s office, along with the New York Health Department, provided “Saturday Night Live” with criteria it would need to meet in order to invite an audience back into Studio 8H.

The criteria, outlined on a state website, mandates that indoor production facilities should not exceed 50 percent occupancy, among other rules. The ticketing website 1iota recently allowed prospective audience members to register for a “pre-screening process” to “determine eligibility to participate” in “Saturday Night Live”‘s audience. Anyone selected would need to take a mandatory Covid test, submit to a temperature check, and wear a face covering, in addition to other guidelines.

An in-studio audience is integral to the format and formula of “Saturday Night Live” as the oxygen and lifeblood of the show. The impact of the audience shapes cast members’ performance and gears them up. Cast members will wear masks until the moment the red light goes on, at which point the Velcro back will be taken off.

If the first stretch of the new “Saturday Night Live” season comes off with few technical glitches or obvious hiccups, the show might provide a model for concerts, Broadway shows, and other forms of live entertainment that have been brought to a standstill by shutdowns related to covid.

People in the television industry will come away with a better understanding of what they can do and what they can not do during the covid crisis, a lot of people will be watching for that. But as with any season of a show widely known for its political satire and ripped-from-the-headlines riffs, “Saturday Night Live” is expected to grapple with more than covid-era restrictions. “Saturday Night Live” is slated to hit the airwaves in the final stretch of a fierce presidential campaign unlike any other, a race that supplies an inordinate number of comedic possibilities.

The first presidential debate, a chaotic melee during which Trump repeatedly interrupted and shouted over former Vice President Joe Biden, likely provided “Saturday Night Live”‘s writing team with particularly fertile ground for parody. But Trump’s covid diagnosis might have moved “Saturday Night Live”‘s writers to potentially soften their edges when it comes to mocking the president. Nick Semlyen speculated that “Saturday Night Live” might need to cut much of its Trump-centric material given his diagnosis.

Presumably “Saturday Night Live” is going to have to scrap a lot of it. Jim Carrey has been tapped to play the Democratic nominee. With this election, it is not an original thought or statement to say that there is a lot at stake.