Reporting in from late-October: for whatever reason, NBC still hasn't made the last four episodes available anywhere, not even as $1.99 purchases on iTunes or amazon. And supposedly they get married in the season (series) finale, too.

Agreed. It feels like Whitmire is doing something new with the top of his hand to make Kermit's eyes and upper face more expressive. And all the shots of the muppets driving cars!

Yeah, the article buries the lead. Will Forte! Chris Parnell! Harvey freakin' Keitel!

I wouldn't call St. Vincent a "Bill Murray" movie. I think the last time he played that type of character was probably, what, Man Who Knew Too Little? Larger than Life? Which came out 18 and 19 years ago, respectively.

I'm assuming that's a reference to the current storyline in the Simpsons: Tapped Out game, where the kids have to deal with Chtulhu's little brother, M'nsther.

It's squandered that goodwill, but people today forget that there was a legitimate reason to bring it back. Those first three seasons are great, and they were among the most popular DVD sets 10 years ago (and the ratings for the Adult Swim reruns were really high, too).

No Lonely Island cameo? Or a verse from Blizzard Man?

Sort of. If you don't like Lorne, why do you watch the show?

Tracy's done a couple of morning shows and made a brief appearance on the Emmys, but we don't really know what kind of shape he's in. Can he handle 90 minutes? It could be a huge embarrassment for all concerned. The best-case scenario might be they stick him in a couple of live sketches, do a bunch of pre-taped stuff,…

The rumor is that none of the obvious replacements want the job of following Lorne. So who knows who'll we get? Maybe Jost in 10 years.

You are right and I was wrong. There were two budget crackdowns. The first came after Ferrell left, and ensured that no one would ever draw the salary he got his last few years on the show. The second was around 07. Wiig, Samberg, and Hader were all promoted from featured after one season. Since then, everyone has had…

Not sure it's a hard rule, but it's definitely an unwritten rule. It has to do with the budgetary crackdown by NBC that occurred after Ferrell left, which is why Amy Poehler is the last person to be promoted early.

Dennis, the featured / cast member distinction these days is about contracts, and has been for more than a decade. Everyone has to do two years as a "featured player," which is why Davidson, Che, and Jones are all still featured. Nobody gets promoted early anymore.

Wayne started banging the Governor of Oklahoma's daughter (for real), and realized he can just play 20 festivals a year and make about the same amount of money.

And I believe he said he won't do drag anymore. So it's mostly just going to be making googly-eyes for laughs in sketches.

There were some changes on the writing staff… one of the guys who was in Good Neighbor with Bennett and Mooney left, as did Mike O'Brien.

Yeah, I mentioned this in the comments last season, but Fey's SNL was defiantly pro-Iraq war, right up until it got unpopular, then it became defiantly anti-Iraq war. Maybe that was Jim Downey, maybe it was leftover fear from 9/11, but it was definitely a thing.

I'm a bit baffled that Sanz has had the worst post-SNL career out of any of the early '00s regulars… even Rachel Dratch and Finesse Mitchell turn up in guest spots more often than he does.

To be fair, they've been doing a "your uncle on Thanksgiving" character for more than 5 years, and he's a huge hit.

I'm actually surprised he came back. As the season went on last year, he really seemed to lose confidence in his non-filmed sketches, and tonight wasn't good either.