During each season of Saturday Night Live, three things define whether or not the episodes are good. One factor is that the quality of the hosts and musical guests is important, even though they don't deserve all the blame in cases like when Sabrina Carpenter's episode got bad reviews. The next thing that can make or break an SNL episode is how good the writing is. Finally, each season's cast is very important, which is why many of the show's stars often land other gigs, like when Colin Jost hosted a game show.
Of those three factors, it can be argued that each season's cast is the most important, since the sketch comedy show's stars are what viewers see each week. With that in mind, it was a big deal when SNL underwent a major cast shakeup before the show's 51st season began. Unfortunately, the cast shakeup was underwhelming, partially because it included a huge mistake.
SNL losing Please Don't Destroy as a group was a huge mistake
Before the 47th season of Saturday Night Live began, a comedy group called Please Don't Destroy was hired to work on the show as writers who contributed prerecorded sketches. The group, which is made up of Ben Marshall, John Higgins, and Martin Herlihy, went on to become a highlight of SNL through the show's 50th season.
Sadly for Please Don't Destroy fans, they appeared a lot less during SNL season 50 than they had previously. Then, Lorne Michaels announced that the show was going to undergo a major cast shakeup before the 51st season began. Not too long after Michaels revealed that, a The Hollywood Reporter article revealed that the group would no longer be working on SNL together as a trio.
According to the report, one Please Don't Destroy member was being upgraded to a member of SNL's cast, Ben Marshall. The outlet also reported that another member, Martin Herlihy, would transition and focus on being an SNL writer. Despite that, it turns out that Herlihy will continue to appear during some SNL prerecorded sketches. Finally, it was reported that John Higgins was leaving the sketch comedy show entirely.
To date, there hasn't been any reports about the motivation behind Please Don't Destroy no longer working on SNL together. What is clear, however, is that the trio hasn't disbanded, since they will continue to create content together outside the show.
Unless there is a non-creative reason why Please Don't Destroy couldn't work on SNL anymore, their shakeup was a huge mistake for the comedy show. After all, the group created many sketches that were so funny or surprising that they went viral on social media. A perfect example of that was the "Three Sad Virgins" sketch that included Pete Davidson and Taylor Swift. The situation also is a shame since episodes of SNL that included Please Don't Destroy were almost always better. On top of those factors, it is worth pointing out that Ben Marshall could have been promoted while the trio still contributed sketches together. The Lonely Island's past success on the show proves that.