The first episode had 226,000 viewers for Sky
The very first edition of “Saturday Night Live UK”, which was broadcast from 10 p.m. on the pay-TV channel Sky One, attracted no fewer than 226,000 viewers.
The show, starring Tina Fey, as well as Graham Norton, and overseen by executive producer Lorne Michaels, had a 3.2% share of the TV audience at the time, according to official BARB figures from overnights.tv.
It beat Channel 4 in the same slot, which showed “Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation,” with 215,000 viewers. The performance of “SNL UK” was almost four times that of “A League of Their Own,” Sky’s biggest entertainment show, and surpassed the U.S. version of “SNL” on the Sky Comedy channel, which reached 5,000 admissions last week.
News on BBC One led the 10pm period with almost 2 million viewers and a 25% share.
Variety reviewer Scott Bryan was generally optimistic in assessing the show.
“Thankfully, ‘Saturday Night Live UK’ has largely taken the basics of what makes the American version successful – sketch comedy, rotating guest hosts and the unpredictability of live television – and left the British to their own devices. That’s where it works,” he wrote, adding “the sketches are darker and more surreal than the American counterpart, the comedy much deadpan.”
He concluded: “Mark it as one of the few places you can watch live comedy and music at a time on British TV when there is shockingly little of either, and they may well be on to a winner.”
Critical reactions elsewhere were also positive (for the time being). Nick Hilton of The Independent gave it three out of five stars, noting that it had “some hits, some misses and a great Princess Di impression”.
Hilton applauded the show’s “willingness to push the boundaries, to risk bad taste.”
He added: “Borrowing a beloved American format may feel a little stale, but there are notes of new ingredients that can offer something new.”
Lucy Mangan of The Guardian gave it the same score. “The general feeling, I think, will be that the first episode of ‘Saturday Night Live UK’ […] it worked,” she said.
“It could have been much, much worse,” she added. “And it could have been a lot better… honestly – it felt refreshing to see even an attempt at an ambition/piece of madness like repurposing an old American brand for this septic island being attempted.”
Charlotte Ivers in the Sunday Times welcomed the sharper humour. “There’s something very refreshing about seeing TV comedians get really close to the line,” she said, before adding: “Unfortunately, in many cases the jokes don’t match the risk.”
