Michael Longfellow leaving Saturday Night Live before season 51

Saturday Night Live season 50
Photo: NBC

We knew that there would be some departures ahead of Saturday Night Live season 51 … but Michael Longfellow? Color us shocked with this one.

According to a new report from Deadline, Longfellow (who has been on the series the past three seasons) will not be coming back for season 51. This comes as a shock for a few different reasons, with the biggest one to us being simply that it felt like he was being set up to be a proper replacement for Colin Jost or Michael Che on Weekend Update. Is there another heir apparent in the cast? It may also be that neither Jost nor Che is planning to leave anytime soon. Longfellow did not necessarily have a lot to do in a cameo-heavy season 50, but he has delivered some solid comedy on a few different instances.

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Ultimately, our hope here is that there are at least a couple of new cast members coming on board season 51, and the reason for a lot of the turnover is likely both for cost and creative reasons. We understand not wanting to make a lot of big changes ahead of season 50 since it was such a milestone, but you can argue easily that we are entering a new era now. By virtue of that, isn’t it inevitable to a certain extent that there will be some changes? We tend to think so anyway.

Remember that the premiere SNL season 51 is a little more than a month away! It still remains to be seen who the first host is going to be, but we honestly would not be shocked if it was Rachel Brosnahan, Sabrina Carpenter, or someone who either had a big-time summer hit or has some positive association with the show already.

Related Be sure to get some more news on some other Saturday Night Live departures

Are you going to miss Michael Longfellow being a part of Saturday Night Live?

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