Did Anybody Else Notice?

For the past few years Saturday Night Live has been really bad. In fact it got to the point the last few years that if I did find myself watching TV on a Saturday night, I would watch MAD TV. I know, I should be ashamed of watching TV on Saturday, I should go out more, whatever. However, mostly for nostalgia I try to watch the season premier of SNL each year. Just to see the new faces and such. This year was quite strange...

First, they seem to have moved to a no punchline format. They just play situations without any jokes or physical humor. If white was reality and black is outrageous satire, this is definitely light grey at best. Also, the humor was decidedly, how to say, conservatively influenced. There were the usual jabs at bush (and a funny cartoon about John Roberto), but also jabs at the media and celebrities(!). Now I know celebrities are often made fun of via impressions; these jokes focused less on accurately doing someone's voice or mannerisms, but instead on celebrities super-sized egos. Not sure if it's new writers, different demographics or what but it was certainly surprising ot me.