Summer of the 2025 TV schedule delivered news of a lot of changes to the cast of Saturday Night Live, with the departures of stars including Ego Nwodim, Heidi Gardner, and part of Please Don’t Destroy, to name just a few. The replacement batch of stars reportedly set themselves apart from past casts, which fans can see in action for the first time when the upcoming SNL hosts take the stage at 30 Rock this fall. Now, the show has made another change and added several new writers for Season 51.
In fact, Variety reports that a total of seven new writers have joined Saturday Night Live for the upcoming new season, which premieres on October 4 and streams episodes next day with a Peacock subscription. Among the crop of new writers is a comic with experience elsewhere on NBC with The Tonight Show starring Jimmy Fallon, a writer/comedian joining SNL from Second City, and two newcomers whose experience comes from The Harvard Lampoon magazine. Take a look at the full list:
- Jack Bensinger (Rap World)
- Jo Sunday (Just For Laughs)
- Maddie Wiener (The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon)
- Rachel Pegram (Harley Quinn)
- Claire McFadden (Second City)
- Maxwell Gay (The Harvard Lampoon)
- Tucker Flodman (The Harvard Lampoon)
Since none of these seven were among the new actors named for the Season 51 cast, they may join the ranks of SNL writers who were never cast members. New cast members include Tommy Brennan, Ben Marshall, Kam Patterson, Veronika Slowikowska, and Jeremy Culhane, the last of whom I’m particularly excited to see after witnessing his comedic stylings on Dropout.
As for the departing cast members, Heidi Gardner, Ego Nwodim, and (perhaps) Devon Walker seem to have chosen to end their time at SNL, while Emil Walker described the “gut punch of a call” when he learned he wouldn’t be back for Season 51 and Michael Longfellow’s contract was seemingly not renewed.
At the time of writing, there has been no confirmation one way or the other if the seven new writers means that SNL creator Lorne Michaels is going to be siginficantly cutting from the crop of Season 50 writers like he did with the cast.
Over the summer, “Weekend Update” writer Rosebud Baker revealed her exit, and Celeste Yim announced her departure after five seasons on Instagram in late August. While those two will surely affect the Saturday Night Live writers room this fall, it appears that Michaels did not make sweeping writing changes like he did to the cast.
Find out if Season 51 feels noticeably different with all the cast and writing changes when Saturday Night Live returns on Saturday, October 4 at 11:30 p.m. ET on NBC. Bad Bunny will return as host for the second time, after another three musical performances. Doja Cat will be the musical guest.