Heidi Gardner leads the ‘SNL’ exodus

Hello, Popculturology friends. Summer’s coming to a close. Pumpkin spice lattes are back on the menu. A celebrity and one of the NFL’s biggest stars ... already got married back in June. With fall looming, it’s about time to start talking about the next season of SNL.

Before we jump in, though, a potential class action lawsuit is targeting the fact that despite what media companies like Amazon Prime Video have led you to believe, you don’t actually own the movies and TV shows that you think you own. Ha. No one will ever take my Blu-rays. (Watches my Blu-ray player die in five years and discs turn to dust.)

“It’s another article about how your dog died”

It’s been a week since we learned of the passing of Frisbee, Seth Meyers’ dog. The Italian greyhound’s death — and her lifelong feud with Andy Samberg — became national news, with even The New York Times covering the story.

Meyers and Samberg discussed Frisbee’s death on this week’s episode of The Lonely Island and Seth Meyers Podcast.

• 📖 Andy Samberg Claims ‘I Didn’t Kill Frisbee’ (Jason P. Frank, Vulture): “He added that he hated that Frisbee was ‘more talon than foot.’ Samberg ended the segment calling it a ‘sick burn on Seth’ that nearly all obituaries of Frisbee mentioned his hatred of the dog, noting, ‘He deserves nothing but pain.’”

Book nook

Here’s what I’ve been reading this week …

• Network Effects (Martha Wells)
• The City and the Stars (Arthur C. Clarke)

NEWS, NOTES & TRAILERS

SNL Season 51 begins to take shape

We’ve reached that part of late summer when the dam of SNL news begins to break. Who’s out? Who’s in? What changes does Lorne Michaels have planned for the new season?

“Yeah, for sure,” Michaels told Puck when asked if he felt “pressure to reinvent this season” after the milestone SNL50 celebration. “It’ll be announced in a week or so.”

As of the writing of this edition of Popculturology, we’ve yet to get an official announcement about Season 51’s cast, but news has begun to trickle out from SNL cast members and writers who are now gone from the show — with news of the departure of one of the show’s veteran cast members coming Thursday evening.

• Good bye, Gardner: The Heidi Gardner era of SNL has come to a close. After joining the show alongside Chris Redd and Luke Null back in 2017, Gardner became one of the show’s signature talents (unfortunately getting overshadowed by stunt casting for a bit) while also establishing herself as a favorite guest on Weekend Update. (Vulture)
• Here for a good, not a Longfellow, time: Despite LateNighter reporting earlier in the week that he had done a screen test for Weekend Update, Michael Longfellow is gone. Last season was Longfellow’s third on the show, and while he hadn’t gotten a ton of time in sketches, it felt like he was being set up to be a potential Update host if/when Colin Jost and Michael Che stepped down. (Deadline)
  • This is a bummer. I loved the energy that Longfellow brought to his Update appearances — flippant with something sinister bubbling below the surface — and was hopeful that we’d get to see him anchoring the segment in the future.
• Walker walks: The first staff cut that we learned of this past week was Devon Walker. After three seasons, his time on SNL is done. “Me and the show did three years together, and sometimes it was really cool. Sometimes it was toxic as hell,” Walker wrote on social media. “But we did what we made the most of what it was, even amidst all of the dysfunction. We made a fucked up lil family.” (LateNighter)
• Emil out: Freshman cast member Emil Wakim announced that his SNL tenure was over after a season, writing on social media, “i won’t be returning to snl next year. it was a gut punch of a call to get but i’m so grateful for my time there.” (Emil Wakim)
• Pencils down: We also learned that Celeste Yim and Rosebud Baker had left SNL’s writing staff. (Celeste Yim) (LateNighter)

Beyond cast and writer departures, there were a few other notables bits of news for SNL Season 51:

• No regime change: Michaels confirmed to Puck that James Austin Johnson will remain SNL’s Donald Trump. While I’m glad Michaels isn’t trying something foolish like bringing in a celebrity ringer (or Shane Gillis), but I really believe that SNL viewers are tired of seeing Trump. It doesn’t matter who plays him. (Puck)
• Updated Update? Weekend Update has been anchored by the duo of Colin Jost and Michael Che since 2014 — longer than any other SNL cast members have held those roles. But is change on the way? That report from earlier in the week that said the show had done Update screen tests with Longfellow also noted that writer KC Shornima did too. (It’s unclear if the duo tested together.) With the news that Longfellow won’t be back for Season 51, does that mean Jost and Che are sticking around? (LateNighter)

Star Wars: Starfighter adds Amy Adams, Matt Smith and more

Lucasfilm unveiled the full cast of Star Wars: Starfighter — the upcoming Star Wars movie that’s definitely, absolutely, seriously happening — on Thursday, announcing that Flynn Gray, Matt Smith, Mia Goth, Aaron Pierre, Simon Bird, Jamael Westman, Daniel Ings and Amy Adams had joined Ryan Gosling.

This confirms the reports from earlier this summer that Goth has signed on for the standalone film, scoring a role that was previously offered to Mikey Madison. Also interesting to see Smith get another shot at being in a Star Wars movie after his role in Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker never shook out. (He had been rumored to be playing a young/newly cloned Palpatine.)

With Starfighter reportedly taking place after Rise of Skywalker, what are the odds we see Daisy Ridley show up as Rey? (Star Wars)