LAWRENCE, Kansas – I am a die-hard Saturday Night Live fan and have been since I was in elementary school. (Too bad my classmates didn’t always appreciate my not-ready-for-prime-time sense of humor.) But for as much as I love the show, I have often been as critical of the show as any outsider with better than cursory knowledge of the inner workings of the show.

The show is currently in a sort of transition, with new writers coming and going and talent cycling through like college athletes. Even so, SNL has recently shown the sort of signs of life that illustrate just how close it is to striking yet another memorable balance in both its on and off air ensemble. And that’s just the purely content-driven side of the show.

SNL has reached its 15th, 25th and now 35th seasons each with a different director behind the wheel, the biggest change coming with Dave Wilson‘s retirement after directing nearly all of the first 20 seasons. (Director Paul Miller had a brief stint on SNL.) Wilson’s strength lay in staging sketches for the stage and translating it to the screen. He left the show guided by the same fundamentally sound style as when he joined the show for its inaugural run.

Then came Beth McCarthy Miller, whose background in experimental programming during the pioneering days of MTV brought a youthful exuberance to the look and feel of the show. McCarthy Miller’s meticulous timing, awareness of the frame and flair for effect with every cut brought both an edge and a rhythm to SNL.

Her vast experience directing high profile music performances and the subsequent transformation of SNL‘s live music under her watch was perhaps her greatest contribution. Instead of lighting the music stage like a set, she pushed for concert lighting, bringing in depth, texture and color to magnify every performance.

With McCarthy Miller’s departure, veteran Don Roy King took over the reins. I was as skeptical as anyone, largely because of his recent background in news, directing both ABC’s Good Morning America and CBS’ The Early Show, among many other credits.

I don’t pretend to be unbiased. Beth McCarthy Miller is one of my favorite directors of all time. But trying to give King the benefit of the doubt, I tried to give an honest assessment of McCarthy Miller’s first seasons. Although there were changes early – in fact, SNL has updated its logo every time it’s changed directors, the transition into her own style was still gradual.

The most notable difference early on was her use of well-paced sweeping crane shots and placement of a camera on stage during musical performances. The rest was far less noticeable likely because, as she once revealed in an interview, Dave Wilson was brought in to help ease the transition between directors.

Lately, Don Roy King has been finding his own comfort level just as she had, and it shows. I still don’t agree with every decision he makes. But I think he’s starting to have more fun with it now that he’s been at the helm for a few seasons. Within the last month and a half, he’s shown signs of vast improvement compared to his earliest work on the show.

It hasn’t hurt that recent host Joseph Gordon-Levitt came in and delivered one of the finest performances I’ve seen in the last few years or that last week Muse delivered one of the most electrifying music performances in recent memory. And King brought his “A” game to both.

For as critical as I’ve been so far, I expect that this is the beginning of great things from Don Roy King and look forward to watching more from him.

Filed under: Late Night TV, Music/Variety, Opinion/Editorial, Television