At the beginning of the season, I felt like you were undergoing a creative renaissance. What happened? The last two episodes have been unbearable. Okay, I recognize that it is wrong to believe there was some kind of golden era of SNL in which every skit was a solid hit. The casts that we think of as classic now were always hit or miss. And humor has changed so much in the last 30 years that your Bill Murray/John Belushi era looks pretty dated at this point.

But during the election, I let you back into my heart. You felt alive and exciting again. The digital shorts were frequently worth watching. Tina Fey’s Sarah Palin was consistently hilarious. Kristen Wiig could do no wrong. Amy Poehler and Seth Myers had the best Weekend Update rapport of all the male/female teams in SNL history.

Like an abusive spouse, though, the minute I think you’ve changed, you smack me in the face with a frying pan to make me feel like a fool for ever having trusted you. Last week you completely wasted the comedic talents of Neil Patrick Harris. This week, you subjected me to an hour and a half of skits so painfully unfunny that I got through the whole episode in a little over 20 minutes. Because I fast forwarded through most of the skits, is what I mean.

I know it’s difficult to write, rehearse, and perform 1 1/2 hours of quality comedy every week. We who simply watch from home have a far easier job than your writers. Some weeks, you probably just aren’t feeling very funny. However, that’s no excuse for falling back on lazy comedy tricks that should have been eliminated from your repertoire years ago.

Anyone who has ever taken an improv class knows that “yes, and” makes for much funnier skits than “no, but”. For example, say I am starting a skit, and I say, “Look up in the sky! It’s a giant, flying sea turtle!” If you say, “no, it’s a flying dolphin!”, then we will never get anywhere. Your job as my comedy wingman is to say, “You’re right! It’s a giant, flying sea turtle, and it’s shooting laser beams out of its eyes at the Underdog float!” “Yes, what you are saying is accurate, and here’s some additional information.”

The SNL writers use the “no, but” setup far, far too often for people who are getting paid comfortable salaries to write comedy. For example, one of the skits from last night was called “Good Excuse.” It was the classic “weird talk show host” format that we’ve seen countless times on SNL. In this particular skit, guests came on and told the hosts they needed an excuse to get out of some problem in their lives. The hosts, played by Kristen Wiig and the rarely-funny Will Forte, give the guest a ridiculous and implausible excuse to which the guest expresses skepticism.

The first guest was Keenan Thompson, who said he needed an excuse to break up with his girlfriend. Wiig & Forte gave him some convoluted lie about having to move for his job to an island where his cell phone was captured by a seagull and then his face fell off and his skeleton fell apart. Now that’s potentially funny. But then they shoot themselves in the foot by having the guest look at them and say something to the effect of, “you’re weird. That would never work.” It’s an instant comedy killer. It would be much funnier if the Keenan Thompson character were to agree that this was a fantastic excuse. Because now, we’re looking at a complete absurd world, rather than two people in our world who are just crazy.

Just imagine how old “Wayne’s World” would have gotten if every guest came on and said, “you guys are pathetic and unfunny.” Instead, the guests within the skit accepted the reality that “Wayne’s World” was the coolest local talk show in the world. And you can do countless skits with that kind of setup. It’s the difference between creating characters and creating jokes. Got it? Good.

Thanks for reading, Saturday Night Live! I’m glad I could help. Next week, I’ll explain to you why cross-dressing is best left to the British and sports stars should never, ever host your program.

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