Amy Poehler Hosting Saturday Night Live Season Premiere

The 2010 Saturday Night Live season premiere will be hosted by Amy Poehler. Poehler as the host of SNL seems like a great way to open the new season, and it probably guarantees that the episode will be really funny. The 2010 Saturday Night Live season premiere is on Saturday, Sept. 25, and it was EW.com that reported on Poehler getting tapped to be the host. Bryan Cranston had revealed that he was asked to host the Oct. 2 episode of the show, but until this breaking story, we had no idea who was going to be asked to host the season premiere.

Anyone who has watched SNL in the past knows that Poehler was a longtime cast member of the show. She was on SNL from 2001-2008, and even earned Emmy nominations for her work on the show. When Poehler left the show, she began work on Parks and Recreation, and ended up earning her fourth Emmy nomination this past summer. She dabbled in a few films (like Baby Mama), but her real talent has been on television, so it was great to see her find success with Parks and Recreation, even if the ratings weren't as strong as they could have been. Now we get Poehler for another spin on SNL this fall.

This is a really good move by the Saturday Night Live producers, even if it does seem like they are cheating a bit by bringing back a former cast member. Will Forte has left the cast, and the show will have four new cast members joining the fold this season. Having a familiar face like Poehler on board will make it easier to "break in" these new featured players to audiences. Entertainment Weekly also reported that those four new cast members are Taran Killam, Paul Brittain, Vanessa Bayer, and Jay Pharoah. Pharoah's impersonation of President Obama could make him a weekly player, and Killam has been seen on Mad TV and How I Met Your Mother in the past.

NBC is trying hard to be a relevant network again, and they could really use positive ratings on Saturday night to go along with their new attempts at programming in the 10 p.m. slot during the week. Not many viewers forgot the failed attempt to have Jay Leno host his show at 10 p.m. last fall, and set back NBC quite a bit when it came to scripted programs. Now they have a whole host of shows debuting in the fall, and if any of them are successful, you can bet that the stars will be making appearances on SNL before the 2010-11 season is out. First we get to see Amy Poehler on Sept. 25, though, and hopefully the writers give her some great skits to work with.