Saturday Night Live cold open: The Manningcast & Mar-a-Lago

We were curious about many things entering this weekend’s Saturday Night Live premiere but, of course, the cold open topped the list. It was inevitable that it would. The NBC show had all summer to think of potential ideas, though the irony here is that much of the structure of this sketch was probably finalized over the past several days. These are often one of the most timely parts of the show, especially since they are often political in nature.

So how did SNL start off the new, largely-revamped season 48? Well, with a spoof of a few different things — the Manningcast, and then also Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate. This was about as meta of an opening as we’ve going to see on the show. It was weird, as the series mostly commented on itself including the new cast members. There was a really funny line as to how one newbie showed up in the opening, and they would probably be missing the rest of the show.

We think that the writers really approached this episode tonight knowing that a lot of people would be skeptical about whether or not the show would be good. The Manningcast served as a great vessel, and a way to have the show comment on itself in some unexpected ways. We also give credit to Jon Hamm, who showed up in a really fun cameo as himself — a former multi-time host who was able to relay his own experience.

If the rest of the show turns out like this, we’ll honestly be happy. This wasn’t SNL resting on its laurels, and we almost wonder if they’re going to be forced to try a lot of new things rather than relying on a lot of tried-and-true things we’ve seen dozens of times over the years. We’ll see…

Related – Get all sorts of other coverage of tonight’s Saturday Night Live

What did you think about this week’s Saturday Night Live cold open?

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