sketch

When the 52nd season premieres on Saturday at the usual time, usual place, “Saturday Night Live,” with host Jalen Brunson (of the champion Knicks) and musical guests Katseye, will again make history as the longest-running sketch comedy and variety show on television.

But week to week — multiplatform 50th-anniversary celebrations aside — the entertainment institution that is “SNL” does not dwell much on its history, focusing instead on trying to earn laughs sketch by sketch, moment by moment. Even when alumni like Tina Fey or Will Ferrell show up, it’s usually in the service of something topical, like a political cold open for a very recent event or happening. “SNL” lives in the now, and that can be a blessing and a curse, like when you feel like you’ve seen the same cold open lampooning President Trump 15 times already. James Austin Johnson is a brilliant impressionist, but read the room, guys.

“SNL” is the rare show for which quality is beside the point. As creator Lorne Michaels has said to cast members like Tina Fey, “The show doesn’t go on because it’s ready; it goes on because it’s 11:30.”

That focus on effort over polish has, surprisingly, helped it survive. For every online hater who tediously comments that “SNL” hasn’t been good since the Dana Carvey era or earlier, there are enough of us stalwarts who will every week obsess about the future of “Weekend Update,” rate the monologue (sometimes harshly) and wait breathlessly at the start of every new sketch, hoping we’re about to watch an all-timer.

For those in that camp — who never give up hope that a great sketch is just a commercial break away — here’s what you can expect from the new season.

The first four episodes

Season 52 will kick off with Knicks point guard Jalen Brunson as the first guest host.

(Rosalind O’Connor / NBC)

New “SNL” episodes usually arrive in batches of three and then the show takes a break for a few weeks. For Season 52, not only was the first trio of hosts and musical guests announced but also the lineup for a Halloween episode.

In addition to Brunson, who might bring along famous friends like Mariska Hargitay or Taylor Swift, actor Dakota Johnson will host, with rock group Turnstile as the musical guest on Oct. 3. On Oct. 10, “SNL” will roll the dice a third time with comedian Shane Gillis, who did not fare too well the last two times he hosted. He’ll be joined by musical guest Rosalía.

The Halloween episode will be hosted by newly minted horror queen Inde Navarrette from the hit film “Obsession,” joined by musical guest Gracie Abrams.

Cast changes and new faces

Over the summer, cast member Chloe Fineman — who had a knack for impressions of celebrities like Timothée Chalamet and Melania Trump — departed the show after seven seasons. It won’t be long before we see her onscreen again: She’s been cast in Netflix’s upcoming Harlan Coben adaptation, “Myron Bolitar.” Also departing was writer Martin Herlihy, the second member of the Please Don’t Destroy video trio to exit, leaving only Ben Marshall, who’s listed as a featured player. Last season, Herlihy did a few self-hosted video segments that tended to run late in the show.

Bowen Yang departed midway through Season 51, while Chloe Fineman announced her departure in July. (Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times) (Michael Loccisano / Getty Images)

Bowen Yang extended his run on “SNL” as his star was quickly rising in projects like “Wicked” and the “Las Culturistas Culture Awards,” but left midway through Season 51. Unlike previous transitions between seasons, no one was cut from the show, and those who left stepped away on their own.

However, two new cast members are joining the show: Grace Reiter and Saidah Belo-Osagie.

Saidah Belo-Osagie, left, and Grace Reiter are the newest “Saturday Night Live” cast members. (Mike Klubeck) (Jill Petracek)

Reiter has already had a supporting role in Tim Robinson’s “The Chair Company” on HBO, and she stars in “Minimum Wage,” which started as a web series and is coming to Netflix in October for a 28–episode run. She was also the star of the very funny “The Hunger Games (But Better),” a low-budget re-creation of the series made over four days by a group of friends.

Belo-Osagie may not have as high as a profile in entertainment yet, but don’t sleep on her TikTok account, which has some great videos including “(POV) Your face card expired” and “Girl who’s secretly happy her neighborhood is gentrifying.” She’s also been in the web series “Abigail’s Divine Comedy,” written and directed a short film and has done work on the stage in New York.

What and who to watch for in Season 52

“SNL” tends to thrive in the run-up to national elections, and with the midterms upon us, the show has its pick of hot-button topics on the campaign trail, from the Iran war to gas prices to the backlash against data centers and AI billionaires.

Johnson’s impression of Trump is likely to be at the center of a lot of these sketches, but the show does well when he serves as a ringleader for characters like Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth (Colin Jost), Vice President JD Vance (Jeremy Culhane) and FBI Director Kash Patel (celebrity guest Aziz Ansari).

Jeremy Culhane as JD Vance, left, and James Austin Johnson as President Trump in a cold-open sketch.

(Lloyd Bishop / NBC)

Last season, Ashley Padilla emerged as a breakout star, carrying a heavy load of women’s roles after the departures of Ego Nwodim and Heidi Gardner. Even when she was giggling with Ryan Gosling because of a writers’ prank, Padilla was hilarious. She’s finally been upgraded to a repertory player and is likely to continue to play the lead in sketches featuring her grounded, emotionally shaky characters, some of whom have terrible haircuts.

Of the new featured players added last season, the two most likely to keep scoring are Culhane — who already has two great “Weekend Update” characters: Mr. On Blast and a masterful Tucker Carlson impression — and Veronika Slowikowska, who proved versatile whether she was portraying a “Guy’s girl” or a dryer with Sabrina Carpenter. Expect them both to be in more sketches this season.

Tommy Brennan, left, Jane Wickline and Ashley Padilla during the “Mom Confession” sketch featured in Season 51.

(Will Heath / NBC)

Marshall, the Please Don’t Destroy writer who joined the cast, has been fine as a utility player and straight man in sketches, but it’s hard to remember anything he was in last season apart from his role as Ron in “Heated Wizardry.”

Tommy Brennan and Kam Patterson both seem like they need to make their mark in sketches and do more than just perform as themselves in “Weekend Update” segments. Unless one or both of them is being groomed as a future “Update” co-host, time’s running out.

As for cast member Jane Wickline, who’s been described as “polarizing” but was also upgraded to repertory, we’re rooting for her. She brings musical talent, which the show needs plenty of, and her awkward vibes frequently add a different and unexpected dimension. An out-on-a-limb prediction: She’s going to have a great season.

What about Lorne?

Every discussion about the state of “SNL” must include a mention of how much longer the show’s steward, who is 81, will remain at the helm. This ongoing Lorne Watch, with predictions of his retirement and potential successors, began around Season 40 and continues. Many thought he’d exit at the end of Season 50, neatly capping an epic TV run.

That did not happen.

Creator Lorne Michaels has been at the helm of “Saturday Night Live” for much of its run.

(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)

So now the talk has shifted to what happens if Michaels’ run is interrupted because, you know, something happens to him?

The names suggested (and bet on) as potential replacements, should anything happen, continue to include producers like Steve Higgins; former cast members like Fey and Seth Meyers, who’ve stayed close to Michaels’ orbit; as well as Conan O’Brien and John Mulaney, all of whom seem like good comedic shepherds who could lead the show into its next era. Michaels himself has said publicly that Fey could “easily” do it. But, they all have their own careers and may not want the all-consuming grind that running “SNL” entails. It may take multiple people.

One outlier pick would be Kenan Thompson, the longest-running “SNL” cast member, starting his 24th season on the show this week. For sheer longevity, having been around for nearly half of “SNL’s” run, and because he’s probably not leaving anytime soon, Thompson might be the pick that makes the most sense.

Premiering Sunday at midnight on Adult Swim, a most appropriate and maybe the only possible space, “The Terrors of Jordan Mendoza” is, as its creator describes it in a prologue, “a ‘Twilight Zone’ sketch show,” which is just what I would have said after watching eight of its 13 11-minute episodes, had he not said it first. Emphasizing its Asian bonafides — Mendoza is Filipino American — he adds, “It would be almost racist if you didn’t do it.”

Mendoza, who stars in, directs and, with David Machajewski, writes the show, has said that some of the ideas come from actual dreams — the “terrors” in the titles are nightmares — though if my own dream life is anything to go by, the jokes are more clever and the narratives at once weirder and more cohesive. At various times it recalls the eeriness of David Lynch or the non sequitur logic of Luis Bunuel, and it has something of the flavor of “The Vince Staples Show,” which also went to some strange places in its too-short life.

Sketches, of varying lengths, build a central idea out in every direction, and a little farther than you might expect. We meet a therapist obsessed with Wendy’s. Batman, convinced that he has adult ADHD because an online quiz told him so (“I know a lot of people claim they have ADHD,” he tells Alfred, “but in my case I think I really do … I’m creative but easily overwhelmed, organized but at the same time not”). A dying man (Steve Buscemi) is obsessed with getting his last words right; a prisoner is sentenced to “15 hugs and kisses” from the “nearest judge.” A bank robber holding hostages demands to be “a famous snake … and if you can’t get on board with that then everyone in here is going to die.” In a horror movie pastiche, Mendoza is dogged by middle-aged white men compelled to tell him that their wife is Asian, which does sound like something from personal experience.

Wherever the comedy goes, it’s played straight and with intensity, as is the terror. The show can be genuinely disturbing and genuinely funny. (Two things can be true at once.) There’s also a scene in which Mendoza, playing a character convinced he’s a Harry Potter wizard, runs into a brick wall he thinks he’ll pass through, and, there’s nothing more liable to make me laugh than that, unless it’s someone hitting their head on a low door frame or suddenly falling over for any number of non-fatal reasons.

Mendoza, who is in his mid-30s, has a string of writing and acting credits, including writing for “Dave,” Dave Burd’s comedy about a suburban Jew from Philadelphia who believes himself destined for rap greatness, and parts in Julio Torres’ “Problemista” and “Fantasmas,” which are located in the same hemisphere of alternative comedy. He has the Rolodex of a well-connected person; the guest list is impressively loaded for someone making his first show.

The great Martha Kelly (from “Baskets”) plays a masseuse who exteriorizes her client’s pain, and in another sketch, she’s a woman sitting in on a confirmation class in order to learn where Jesus might be “lodging” when he returns. (She has a plan.) Kate Berlant invites Mendoza to what turns out to be a one-woman poetry slam, held in secret to avoid the Slammers Union (“They’re like the Sopranos, only violent”). Chris Parnell, Randall Park, Wanda Sykes, Thomas Lennon, Clea DuVall, Lake Bell, Toby Huss, Mark Maron, Fred Armisen and Gregg Turkington (from the world of “On Cinema at the Cinema”) all muck in.

You should know from the above whether this might be your sort of thing. (It won’t be everyone’s, but it’s definitely up my dark, crooked alley.) But, really, it’s even better than these descriptions might lead you to guess, elevated by the first-class production, assured performances (Mendoza is himself very good) and everyone’s commitment to whatever bit is up at the time. The devilishness is in the details.