Saturday Night Live and Star Trek have a long and complicated history, beginning with a 1976 sketch about Star Trek‘s cancelation and moving forward from there. Sometimes the results have been good (i.e. Chris Pine channeling his inner William Shatner); sometimes, less so (i.e. last season’s bizarre riff on Gen Z). For the season premiere of the show’s 47th season, SNL returned to the well of Star Trek parodies — but this time, the show had a bigger satirical target in mind.
That target? Billionaires going to space. And while there were jabs at both Richard Branson and Elon Musk in here, the real target was Amazon and Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos, played here by guest host Owen Wilson. Riffing on the crew of Blue Origin’s debut voyage meant that the show needed to find someone to play Jeff’s brother Mark Bezos; you might be surprised to see who turns up in the role.
The sketch’s punchlines included a few expected targets, contrasting the ideals of space exploration as seen in Star Trek with the far more modest goals of sending a very wealthy man into orbit for a few minutes. Some broader critiques of Amazon also came into play.
Clocking in at just over two and a half minutes long, the sketch made its points and didn’t wear out its welcome. As SNL riffs on Star Trek go, this one’s on the positive side of things.
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