I like SNL i have for a long time, even with what people call bad casts or bad hosts i still feel its has solid potential every week.But the thing im having a problem with is the serious focus on creating reoccurring characters and sketches, i mean i get that those characters are the ones who bring in the 'big bucks' like The Ladies Man and MacGruber because they are marketable and translate into movies/merchandise, and from a writing standpoint the old standards make it easy for a writer to pump out a few sketches with characters that are already developed leaving time for the actors to fine tune their performances.But i guess my favorite part of SNL has always been the random sketches, their faux commercials, the characters that we never see again. Maybe thats why Will Farrell was so prolific, he was able to take those one off sketches and make them great. I mean i just watched a Best Of Dan Aykroyd and with the exception of the Coneheads and the Festrunk Brothers (the wild and crazy guys) most of his best stuff was stuff you would never see again.I think in recent years there have been episodes with nothing but return sketches, im not saying reoccurring characters are a bad thing, its just that too much of it is. That might be why Weekend Update is so successful, its not really about the sketch as its about rotating gags that are unique and inevitably topical, IMO the only part of Weekend Update that ever fails are the parts with guests, and even then its sometimes pretty funny....