The irony should not be lost that NBC has to go back to the 1980s -- and a show whose players were once proudly dubbed "Not Ready for Prime Time" -- to help break the network out of its ratings slump in the new millennium. Since the show hasn't been off the air since its 1975 premiere, we can safely gather that it won't be canceled, and the constant harping on that shaky mortality serves to dilute the focus from what we really crave in shows like this: entertainment. After a while, you just want creator, exec producer and guru Lorne Michaels to seal his lips and let the clips roll unimpeded by so much overanalysis and self-important observation.

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