Is there a cast crisis coming at `Saturday Night Live’?

Bill Hader said goodnight to “Saturday Night Live” at last night’s season finale. Seth Meyers announced that he’s leaving his spot as head writer and “Weekend Update” anchor to take on his own late-night show on NBC by next January. It is likely that Jason Sudeikis and Fred Armisen may be moving on from the weekly skit show. Last year Kristen Wiig had a tearful exit from the long-running comedy.

The New York Post recently ran a piece pondering whether this season may be their last.

Sudeikis was originally supposed to leave SNL at the midway point of the season, but stayed to the end. Armisen turned over his Obama impersonation duties to Jay Pharoah. The two performers had less screen time this season. Lorne Michaels will probably try to keep them on, but that would only be a short term solution. Armison has been on the show for 11 years and Sudeikis has put in eight seasons.

Fans of the show who know the history of its 38 seasons shouldn’t start to worry yet. The 2013-14 season may be just another one of SNL’s tricky transitional seasons has threatened to sideline the show before. Hader may have been the Most Valuable Not Ready for Prime Time Player for the 2013 season, but they said they same about Kristin Wiig last year and when she left, she took Andy Samberg with her. Similar predictions came after Eddie Murphy left the show and people weren’t sure the show would survive the defection of Chevy Chase.

In their long run, the revolving door cast has had more of a reinvigorating effect than a destructive one. After the 2005-2006 season SNL lost its head writer and “Weekend Update” anchor Tina Fay along with five other cast members. The show survived. It also survived massive shakeups that happened during the 1985-86 and 1994-95 season. Both times new casts breathed new life into the funny franchise. In 1986, the cast was reborn with Dana Carvey, Phil Hartman and Kevin Nealon. Will Ferrell, Darrell Hammond, Cheri Oteri, Chris Kattan and Colin Quinn all joined in 1996.

Lorne Michaels might not have to bring in new talent to replace the outgoing comedians. The show has been grooming Taran Killam and Bobby Moynihan for bigger things last year. Moynihan’s Drunk Uncle character has become the biggest draw on “Weekend Update,” countering what looked like a gradual descent into second-class status in the cast. Killam has been taking on the weird territory that had been explored by Samberg. There is still a lot of room for Pharoah and the new castmembers from last season, Cecily Strong and Tim Robinson. Kate McKinnon joined the cast at the end of last season. She adds celebrity impressions of Martha Stewart to Ellen DeGeneres.

As for who will sit in the “Update” anchor chair? The odds are in favor of SNL writer John Mulaney.

by Tony Sokol