’Saturday Night Live’s Famous Formula Has 1 Unfixable Problem

Published Nov 7, 2026, 2:36 PM EST Greer Riddell is a London-based film and television journalist writing about comedy, streaming and the evolving media industry in the UK and USA. She works at Collider, covering the latest in film, television and entertainment through interviews, features, reviews and industry coverage. Her recent brand collaborations include HBO, Warner Bros., Netflix, Hulu, Sky, Disney+ and DC Studios. She has covered titles including Saturday Night Live UK, Rivals, Scrubs, Stuart Fails to Save the Universe, Ludwig, Supergirl and Stranger Things. Her recent interviews include Florence Pugh, Mike Faist and Christopher Abbott for Netflix's East of Eden, Taika Waititi and Jenna Ortega for Klara and the Sun. Saturday Night Live has spent 5 decades establishing a format that is instantly recognizable and runs like clockwork. Bringing the show to the UK meant deciding which of those traditions were worth keeping and which could be left behind. At the Edinburgh TV Festival 2026, SNL UK director Liz Clare and cast member Emma Sidi discussed two elements of the original that prompted very different reactions — the famous crane shot and the end-of-show credits. While Clare rejected the crane because of the practical demands of the British production, Sidi admitted that the cast initially found the closing tradition unbearably "naff." SNL UK could not reproduce the American original and expect every production choice or cultural convention to translate, but neither could it reinvent everything without losing elements that make the format successful. So before any episode aired, the crew behind SNL UK had the mammoth task of working out what it could change and what it needed to keep, and while one problem solved itself, another remains unfixable. Why 'SNL UK' Rejected 'Saturday Night Live's Famous Crane Shot One of the defining features of Saturday Night Live is its production setup, which allows the show to move between the monologue and sketches while maintaining the pace and energy of a live performance. SNL UK has adopted much of the American show's approach, but director Clare decided against using its famous crane shot. Speaking at the Edinburgh TV Festival's The SNL Masterclass, director Clare explained, “The camera setup is probably pretty standard. In fact, it's based on the American show, bar the fact that we don't use the Americans have got this big old bit of kit, big crane that's become a feature of the show,” Clare said. “We decided not to employ that camera because it takes up an awful lot of space.” Collider Exclusive · 8 Questions · 2 Minutes Which British Mystery Series Should You Live In? Midsomer · Broadchurch · Luther · Vera Answer eight quick questions and we will tell you which one you belong in. Four of the biggest British detective shows ever made, four completely different tones, and four very different ideas of what a detective is for. 🏡Midsomer(Midsomer Murders) 🌊Broadchurch(Broadchurch) 🌚Luther(Luther) 🧥Vera(Vera) FIND YOUR SERIES → 01 Where would you most want to live? Pick the one that sounds most like you. AA village with a very old pub. BA seaside town under a cliff. CA flat in east London. DSomewhere windy with a long view. NEXT QUESTION → 02 How do you feel about your neighbours? Be honest. AI know all of them and their business. BWe genuinely look out for each other. CI have never met a single one. DThey know to leave me to it. NEXT QUESTION → 03 How would your friends describe you? Pick the closest answer. ACheerful, and a little bit nosy. BKind, and you feel everything. CIntense. Occasionally alarming. DBlunt, and usually right. NEXT QUESTION → 04 How do you solve a problem at work? One answer only. AChat to everybody until it clicks. BPatiently, and it costs me something. CStraight through the middle of it. DAsk the question nobody else will. NEXT QUESTION → 05 Pick a coat. No wrong answers here. AA waxed jacket and wellies. BWhatever was nearest the door. CA long dark overcoat. DA battered hat and an old mac. NEXT QUESTION → 06 How do you take bad news? Pick the closest answer. AMake tea and sit down with it. BTake it personally, every time. CGo very quiet, then move fast. DGet straight on with the job. NEXT QUESTION → 07 What is your relationship with the rules? Think about work, not parking. ARules are what hold a place together. BI follow them and they still fail people. CRules are for people with more time. DI bend the ones that get in the way. NEXT QUESTION → 08 What matters most to you in a case? Last one. This is the one that decides it. AThat the village gets its peace back. BThat the family finally gets an answer. CThat whoever did it is stopped. DThat somebody finally listened. REVEAL MY SERIES → Previously, On ITV Your Series Is…Britain makes more detective television than any country has any business making, and somehow almost all of it is good. Here is the one you belong in, what it says about you, and the case for it being the best of the four. Midsomer MurdersYou want the tea, the gossip and the vicar behaving oddly. Midsomer is a county where the scenery is beautiful, the fete is on Saturday and the murder rate is roughly that of a small war, and absolutely nobody involved thinks this is strange. You are sociable, curious and the first to notice that somebody has changed their routine. It has been running since 1997 and sells to well over two hundred territories worldwide. John Nettles handed over to Neil Dudgeon in 2011 and the show did not miss a step. Your flaw is that the line between caring about people and enjoying the gossip is thinner than you admit. BroadchurchYou feel other people's grief as if it were handed to you personally. Broadchurch is less a whodunnit than a study of what a small town does to itself when it finds out that the answer was always going to be somebody everybody already knew. You are the one people tell the truth to, and you carry all of it afterwards. Olivia Colman won the BAFTA for Best Actress for the first series and David Tennant has never been better. Chris Chibnall wrote it before taking over Doctor Who, and took Jodie Whittaker with him. Your risk is absorbing so much of other people's pain that nobody notices yours. LutherYou go through things rather than around them. John Luther is the best detective in London and a liability to everybody who works with him, and the show is completely honest that those two facts are the same fact. You are the one people call when the normal approach has already failed. Idris Elba won a Golden Globe for it in 2012 and it made him a film star more or less overnight. Luther: The Fallen Sun arrived on Netflix in 2023 and took the character properly cinematic. Your weakness is that doing the right thing your way still leaves a mess for somebody else. VeraYou say the thing and you do not dress it up. Vera Stanhope turns up in a hat and a mac, is rude to almost everybody, and is the only person in the room prepared to ask the question that the family has been waiting years for somebody to ask. You have no patience for performance, and the people who like you really like you. Brenda Blethyn played her for fourteen series before stepping away, and ITV ended the show rather than recast. Ann Cleeves wrote the novels, and also wrote the books behind Shetland, which is the same trick in a colder place. Your flaw is that blunt and kind can be the same thing, but only if people already know you. ↻ RETAKE THE QUIZ The decision makes sense for a show that has to accommodate multiple sets, rapid changes and performances staged in the round. A large crane might be a recognizable part of the American production, but that does not mean it is essential to the format. Instead, the British production has adapted its equipment to suit the way the show operates. “But we do have a jib, and we've got some pads,” Clare explained, describing some of the alternatives available to her team. Her approach is less about reproducing the American show's visual identity exactly and more about understanding what its camera work is trying to achieve. As she put it, “It's really just about making sure that what is interesting about the show is that it's played in the round in a way that then helps all of those resets.” Jamie Dornan’s turn as host in Season 1, Episode 2, offers a good example of how the money saved on the crane allows the series to follow the technical needs of each joke. Dornan played a criminal taking Annabel Marlow hostage, a role that required the production to recreate the appearance of a video recorded on a camcorder. Rather than relying on a conventional studio camera to capture the scene, Clare's team found a more specific solution. “We knew that we needed some kind of camera that he could look like he was recording a sort of hostage video,” she explained. “So we actually got a live really lovely sort of digicam that was a live picture, live feed that we were able to take out of the camera and put in and used to make it look as authentic as possible.” Why ‘SNL UK’s Cast Members Had To Embrace The American Series’ End Credits The closing sequence of Saturday Night Live is one of its most familiar traditions. As the credits roll, the cast gathers around the host, exchanging hugs and saying goodbye to the audience. For Sidi, however, the practice initially seemed awkward and unnecessary. Her reaction highlights a different challenge for SNL UK. Technical decisions can be made according to the needs of the production, but cultural traditions can be harder to assess up front. Sidi admitted that she had never been particularly fond of the American show's endings. “That's something with the American show... the ending, the goodbyes bit. I would just see it and go, ‘This is just so naff. I can't bear to see this,’” she said at the Edinburgh TV Festival. From the viewer's perspective, the sequence can look like an overly sentimental ritual, particularly when performers who have spent the episode confidently delivering jokes suddenly show their relief that it is over in the farewell. However, making SNL UK changed Sidi's perspective. The cast were experiencing the pressure of putting together a live show, working through rehearsals, changes, and the demands of performing. Sidi explained that she understood the tradition differently once she had experienced that process, “And when we're doing it now, I get it because we have done the heist during the week, you know?... So we're hugging and crying... fuck it, we're luvvies now,” she joked. “You are just like, thank god we did it. It's so real that hugging at the end.” SNL UK could have dropped the closing sequence to avoid something the cast found embarrassing, just as Clare dropped the crane. Removing them would not change the quality of the series or make a sketch easier to stage. Yet it would have removed a moment that the people making the show have come to value. Sidi even acknowledged that viewers might still find the sequence uncomfortable: “So sorry you have to watch that, but we're gonna keep doing it!” Now halfway through its second season, Saturday Night Live UK is still developing its own identity away from the American original, but some things stay essential to the show regardless of where it is being made. Saturday Night Live UK Season 2 Part 2 returns on Sky One in the UK in January 2027 and streams the next day on Peacock in the U.S.