‘Saturday Night Live’ preview: One final Dakota Johnson, Kenan Thompson, Alabama Shakes promo

While Kenan Thompson may be joking around in the “Saturday Night Live” promo when he says “let’s start the next 40 [years] off right,” he actually has a point here: There is a heck of a lot of pressure on tonight’s new episode. You are coming off of a show that drew enormous ratings, and also featured more celebrities than you can possibly count.

Now, you have as a host Dakota Johnson. Is she seemingly fun? Sure, but the pressure is on her to really deliver here. The only possible cameo we figure could be in here is her “Fifty Shades of Grey” co-star Jamie Dornan, and even that is somewhat of a stretch. That movie is a couple of weeks into its run at the box-office now, and we’re not sure how big the push here is to promote it.

Given that Dakota was on “Ben & Kate” and also has done all right in these promos, we figure that there is going to be even more pressure tonight on the writers. One thing the team needs to come up with right now are really new, fun sketches that bring something to the table that we have not seen before. Get rid of the dead weight, such as the Girlfriends Talk Show or the veterinary clinic. Try to create some new recurring bits, or a new “Weekend Update” character or two. Kyle Mooney and Beck Bennett need to up their game a little bit after some weaker outings in the first part of this season.

We love “Saturday Night Live,” and for the most part, we are confident that the crew will figure this all out. We just hope that there are no growing pains first.

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