- Network: NBC
- Series Premiere Date: Feb 16, 2025
Critic Reviews
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Ultimately SNL50 was a good microcosm of Saturday Night Live as a whole. The special was in love with itself but selective about its history, and still aware enough to frequently mock its own conventions and weird institutional baggage. It also was a special dominated by one man who was rarely mentioned on camera and only seen for a brief moment at the very end.
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Oddly, “SNL50” was chock-full of callbacks but light on actual nostalgia.
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It was a tonnage of effort and personality smushed onto the Studio 8H stage, and it all added up to something that was, well, fine? You could call it serviceable, checking nostalgia boxes while trying desperately to remain relevant to the youth of today, with more screen time for Sabrina Carpenter than Bill Murray.
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Those with the staying power to make it through all three hours will meanwhile have had their reward with a memorable turn by Paul McCartney, who bashed out the bittersweet Beatles hit Carry That Weight on piano. You can’t beat a bit of Macca, and his arrival offered a welcome respite from the deluge of non-gags that had rained down like confetti at a Coldplay concert.