Saturday Night Live (SNL) has been a staple of American TV since 1975, going through a variety of ups and downs as the sketch comedy show now has about a month left of its 50th season. Because of this, SNL put on a celebration of its show on the streaming service Peacock in multiple parts: a sketch show, a concert, and a documentary about the show’s musical history.

The specials took place on the evenings of Jan. 27th,  and Feb. 16th and 17th. The most interesting of these was Questlove’s documentary, “Ladies & Gentlemen… 50 Years of Music.” It delves into the history of the production’s musical guests, who are featured in every episode.

This documentary truly feels like it has a lot of passion behind it; it involves interviews with musical guests, shares stories of what it was like to be on the show, the pressure of the live performances, and really makes you understand how this TV show has had so much importance to rising musical artists. 

Questlove’s love for the show as a previous performer (being the drummer for the band “The Roots”) and a veteran in the late night show game, performing on stage for Jimmy Fallon for 11 years, shines throughout this entire documentary

Even just the intro to the documentary clearly took time and care to create. It brings together a variety of the show’s most important and famous performances from people like Elvis, Prince, and Kanye West, putting them seamlessly into their own song, which, while highly entertaining, may run a little long. Nonetheless, it demonstrates Questlove and his team’s dedication to this show.

I think this documentary was the perfect way to celebrate the music of SNL, not just in the performances, but also in the show’s sketches.

While this celebration of music was great to see, its live music counterpart did not hold up nearly as well.

The concert’s performances, much like the show’s, were extremely hit or miss. The concert had a musical medley with Andy Samburg and Lonely Island, ex-members of the show who made many musical skits, which was excellent. It featured a variety of call-backs to other parts of SNL’s history, which is great for any true fans of the show, but may not hit the same with new audience members. They were able to put a lot of great comedy into this performance, making it feel like the strongest actual celebration of the show’s work.

Its musical comedy performances were truly the highlight of the concert, and having Will Ferrell yell out the lyrics to “Not Like Us” by Kendrick Lamar and “Good Luck, Babe!” by Chappell Roan was not something I ever knew I needed in my life. However, the actual musical performances were not as strong as I had hoped they’d be.

There were a lot of unusual choices for artists to be doing songs that were not their own, and did not seem to fit the artists’ voice or style. Having Post Malone yell “Smells Like Teen Spirit” with Nirvana was not a choice that worked in the slightest— every lyric felt like it paled in comparison to the original version. Post Malone’s version just lacked the passion of the first, which was truly a problem with most of the artist’s performances.

Even the better performances, like Ms. Lauryn Hill, fell a little flat compared to what I expected from her, making the concert disappointing.

They didn’t only celebrate their music; they also celebrated the core of the show— the sketches.

Their sketch episode, “SNL50: The Anniversary Special,” called back to a lot of previous popular  sketches, like “Debby Downer,” “Scared Straight,” “Black Jeopardy,” and Adam Sandler’s famous SNL songs.

The sketches had some highs and some lows. The sketch “Scared Straight,” about a group of convicts doing a terrible job convincing some kids why crime is a bad lifestyle to live, was a highlight of the show, referencing the 2010s era of SNL in a nostalgic way.

They also did a great job highlighting SNL’s new history by doing a skit to reference “Domingo,” their most recent skit that went viral on TikTok. The show does a great job bringing up every era of the show, in a way where any generation that’s watched the show can enjoy.

Some of the sketches did fall flat, though. “Debby Downer,” which can be a good sketch, really was not working, as it is a pretty one-note sketch on its own, but they likely felt they needed to do it because of how big it was, despite not having a great vision for how to elevate the sketch.

My main problem with the special was the amount of celebrity cameos in it. It was really entertaining to see a bunch of celebrities who I knew, but at certain points, it began to feel more like a game of “I Spy” than tasteful cameos.

It’s something they even point out in the show, and while it is hilarious when they do, it doesn’t really negate the fact that the amount of cameos gets annoying after a while, and loses the flavor it had at the beginning.

While the celebrations had a variety of ups and downs, it was still a truly fun watch that I would recommend to  those who follow SNL, though it may not be as fun for non-regular viewers.