‘Saturday Night Live’ adds Pete Davidson as featured player; Mike O’Brien returns to writing staff

There is one last “Saturday Night Live” shake-up to report on before we reach the premiere coming up on September 27, and this one may surprise a few of you.

According to Deadline, Mike O’Brien’s not going to be keeping his Featured Player job, after all. Instead, he will be returning to the writing staff, where he was prior to getting some screen time on the show in the first place. This does bum us out for many reasons, mostly because we feel like he actually had some potential but really did not get to show it off much of the time.

On the flip side, rising comedian Pete Davidson has just signed on to be a new Featured Player for the upcoming season. At just 20 years old, he is tied with Robert Downey Jr. for the third-youngest person to sign on. Anthony Michael Hall (17) and Eddie Murphy (19) are the only two who were younger, and they clearly went on to do some pretty good stuff. Davidson has really only been on the scene now for around four years, but has quickly become the talk of New York comedy clubs. He’ll be able to play a variety of different characters, and he does give the show more of a young energy.

This may complete the roster for the new season, which means that Davidson and new Weekend Update co-host Michael Che may be the only newcomers on-camera. The show lost Noel Wells, Brooks Wheelan, and John Milhiser earlier this summer, while other newcomers Sasheer Zamata, Kyle Mooney, and Beck Bennett were retained.

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Photo: NBC