‘Saturday Night Live’: Three things season 40 should fix before Jim Carrey, Iggy Azalea

We’re three episodes into “Saturday Night Live” season 40, but so far, the way that we would describe the show is as a bumpy ride. There have been moments that give us confidence in the current direction of things, but at the same time, there have also been dud sketches, bad uses of time, and also bizarre gaps in appearances for some notable cast members.

With no new episode this week and Jim Carrey / Iggy Azalea coming up in just over a week, we like to be solutions-oriented. Therefore, we’ve come up with some things that NBC should consider doing if they want to pick up this show and bring it to the next level.

1. Fix the opening – Darrell Hammond obviously didn’t want to be Don Pardo, and we appreciate that. However, he sounds like he’s reading to someone at a coffee house in this introduction. He needs to either re-record this, or find a way to be there live to do a reading where he actually has to shout the cast member’s names over the crowd.

2. More Kate McKinnon and Taran Killam – To us, these are the male and female MVPs of the show right now, but they’ve been missing for large gaps in the first three episodes. Meanwhile, we’ve seen a surprising amount of Aidy Bryant, and while Pete Davidson has been a revelation, you have to be careful with how much you use him. Also, don’t make it necessary to have a Kyle Mooney / Beck Bennett pre-tape in there if they aren’t any good. Only one of them so far (“Inside SoCal”) has made us laugh.

3. Loosen up “Weekend Update” – This is easier said than done, since we feel like the biggest mistake the show made was just moving Colin Jost into the seat in the first place. He’s really not as bad as the internet makes him out to be; instead, he’s just too similar to Seth Meyers. We’re probably stuck with the lineup of him and Michael Che, so Colin needs to just come up with a looser persona that doesn’t just feel like Seth’s little brother.

What are your suggestions for “SNL” before it returns to the air? Let us know, and head over here to see some video highlights from this past weekend’s show! You can also sign up to get some further TV updates on all we cover via our CarterMatt Newsletter. (Photo via NBC.)