SNL: What Biden’s New Impressions Revealed

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This is not political comedy.

‘SNL’ is cramming seasoned artists into stilted sketches. (Will Heath / NBC / NBCU / Getty)

Saturday Night Live kicked off its 47th season with a new cast member staring into the camera lens, a smart announcement that the show is looking to stay ahead of the curve. That actor was James Austin Johnson, a comedian who gained a following on Twitter for his short, surreal impression, most famously of Donald Trump, in which he circled the streets while delivering bizarre speeches in the voice of former presidents. But the role he opened up playing SNL was President Joe Bidenone who he played with a bit of less comic dynamism.

Johnsons appearance speaks of the show’s lack of sociability even as it tries to modernize itself by the end of its fifth decade on the air. After years of Alec Baldwins tired of Trump’s impression of airing political shows, SNL has finally met a young, talented online who can do more in the role, and get him on the air to perform Joe Biden. I say all this so as not to detract from Johnsons overall performance. This is his first stage, and the actor has done a great job with each of his sketches. But with its historic 50th season on the horizon, SNL must feel the pressure to regain its place on the cutting edge of comedy.

Johnson is one of three new cast members hired this year, along with comedians Aristotle Athari and Sarah Sherman. But the lack of overall cast turnover on the show is low. Only two people left: Beck Bennett, a presence veteran who left partly because he lived in Los Angeles, and Lauren Holt, who only had a single year as a repertory player. That means SNL now has a cast of 21 actors, its largest, including longtime stars like Kate McKinnon, Pete Davidson, and the timeless Kenan Thompson, starting his 19th season on the show. Previously, SNLs producer Lorne Michaels, was notorious for her willingness to cut the ensemble frequently to keep the show fresh; Now he seems happy to let everyone stick around as long as they want.

Read: Norm Macdonald likes laughter, not applause

Casting Johnson as Biden feels like a great move if SNL wants to fight rudeness. The initial strategy presented last year was to feature Jim Carrey in the role, as a glitzy counterpart to Baldwins Trump, but the actors took too long without inspiration. After Carrey’s departure, SNL’s trusted impressionist Alex Moffat will play the role, but his performance will be almost entirely anonymous. Johnsons Biden is a bit more intense, a mix of inferiority and despair, as the show’s opening sketch sees him repeatedly trying to bridge the differences between Democratic modemates Joe Manchin (Aidy Bryant) and Kyrsten Sinema (Cecily Strong) and the progressives Ilhan Omar (Ego Nwodim) and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (Melissa Villaseor).

That talent grouping is a good example of how deep SNL’s bench is today, and how sad it is to see it wasted. Bryant, Strong, Nwodim, and Villaseor are skilled actors with experience in being funny on the show, but they tend to be crammed into stilted sketches like this one, where each performer throws a zingy one-liner about to the person they present but otherwise immobile. Johnsons Biden didn’t leave much mark, but that’s in part because of the material given to him, including the nasty political jabs about the Democrats rioting.

As much as I appreciate the introduction of new talent, most of the last night shows were pretty familiar stuff. Host Owen Wilson, gamely performed partial parts, made a loose impression on Jeff Bezos, and satirized his work on the Pixar film Cars. The holding pandemic humor came in the form of a goofy school board meeting and a showmanship plagued by false positive test results. In the Weekend Update, Colin Jost and Michael Chenow the longest -running pair of hosts in SNL history have turned to the same job they fired for years. Pete Davidson dropped out for a segment at the Met Gala that seemed to reflect his confusion that somehow he was still on the show.

Read: Jon Stewart’s new counter-comedy

Perhaps the most accidental boring moment came as Jost and Che’s memory of Norm Macdonald, the former Weekend Update anchor and SNL cast member who died last month. As part of the tribute, the show played some of Macdonalds ’best one-liners from behind the Update desk, and I was once again reminded of what a fearless performer he was, not afraid to tell jokes that might disturb his bosses or chaotic audiences. That’s a vitality that SNL hasn’t had in years, and unless it actually embraces the punchier online energy that it’s clearly trying to emulate, it probably won’t get back there.

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