Saturday Night Live (season 34)
| Saturday Night Live (season 34) | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Country of origin | United States |
| No. of episodes | 22 |
| Release | |
| Original network | NBC |
| Original release | September 13, 2008 – May 16, 2009 |
| Season chronology | |
The thirty-fourth season of Saturday Night Live, an American sketch comedy series, originally aired in the United States on NBC between September 13, 2008, and May 16, 2009.
This season is notable for its take on the 2008 presidential election, which saw the show's ratings rapidly increase and a number of award nominations.
This season consisted of 22 episodes rather than the usual 20, in an attempt to compensate for episodes lost during the 2007–2008 Writers Guild of America strike. This made it the longest season since the show's second season. The season premiere date of September 13 was earlier than the premiere date for previous seasons, which typically have started during the final weekend of September or in early October.
The show was nominated for many awards including Emmy Awards, a Peabody award and nomination for Comedy/Variety (Including Talk) Series at the Writers Guild of America Awards 2009. After gaining so much media coverage and high seasonal ratings, rival sketch show Mad TV ended in 2009 after its fourteenth season due to low ratings and a dip in quality brought on by budget constraints and mediocre writing.
SNL received much media coverage for the show's take on the 2008 presidential election, causing ratings to increase rapidly. The season premiere opened with Tina Fey playing Republican vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin (alongside a pregnant Amy Poehler as Hillary Clinton) in a "non-partisan message on sexism". The phrase "I can see Russia from my house!" was coined by Fey during this sketch. The episode was the show's highest-rated season premiere since the 2001–02 season and is the second most-watched SNL episode ever. A month later, the show drew its highest ratings in over 14 years when the real Sarah Palin appeared. SNL had 17 million viewers during its first half-hour.
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