Ranking Saturday Night's Not Ready for Primetime players based on how closely they resemble the original cast

7 Emily Fairn as Laraine Newman

In keeping with the way the show treated its female cast members in its first decades, Newman isn't given much to do Saturday evening. She has a crush on Dan Aykroyd (Dylan O'Brien), who hits on practically every woman he comes across. She demonstrates to Lorne Michaels (Gabriel LaBelle) how to quickly change costumes to stop him from cutting one of her sketches. Fairn does what she can, but the role is so fixed that it's difficult to get a feel for her.

6 Lamorne Morris as Garrett Morris

The biggest problem with Saturday evening is that it's written as if everyone in it knows it's a historical film. Given the real-time conceit, it takes place in the 90 minutes preceding the first episode of Saturday evening (The Live was added later) – there are many moments where characters just stand up and explain what their business is. Morris is a published playwright who attended and performed at Juilliard La Traviata in Italian, and that's why he's in a crisis about what he's doing in the cast of a show like this. Don't worry if you take a bathroom break the first time he explains any of this to you: every time the action returns to him, he continues to turn around as he lists credentials.

5 Ella Hunt as Gilda Radner

Hunt has one of the tougher tasks: portraying an actor who is not only deceased, but whose memory has reached almost mythical status. Radner has to be both the edgy counterculture comedian actress she would have had to be to be cast in this show and the ethereal goblin of eventual legend. Hunt is very willing to make faces and put on a high-pitched voice, but that's the case with so many others SNL Characters, the wig does most of the work.

4 Kim Matula as Jane Curtin

As Curtin Morris shows, killing time between rehearsals, their career to date has flourished because of their talent for being palatable and normal; In contrast to the other female actors, she shrugs her shoulders and plays her role as a still attractive mother in this series. Like the real Curtin, Matula has a gift for making conventionality seem subversive. (In case you haven't seen her appearance as flight attendant Ronnie in the unfortunately short-lived sitcom LA to VegasYou won't regret looking for it.)

3 Cory Michael Smith as Chevy Chase

Smith's job is pretty much the opposite of Hunt's, as he plays a real person who is widely known as a hateful asshole who just started his overrated reign of terror in the series this film is about. Because Chase's reputation is so well known, the script doesn't waste too much space trying to humanize him; The closest we come to pathos is when Milton Berle (JK Simmons) light surpasses him in conversational combat, but even then it's clear that Chase deserves what he gets, and Smith never cheats when it comes to portraying Chase's seemingly innate idiocy.

I might have rated this performance higher if there weren't two late moments that I couldn't believe: 1) when brand new writer Alan Zweibel (Josh Brener) hands him a Weekend Update joke and Chase acknowledges it appreciatively ; and 2) when he helps build the floor for the home base set in the final minutes before the show begins. Everything I've ever known about the real Chevy Chase tells me he's never helped anyone with anything.

2 Matt Wood as John Belushi

Like Morris, Belushi isn't sure if doing the show is the right move for him. Unlike Morris, Belushi's ambivalence gets the “show, don't tell” treatment. Wood represents Belushi's fear and artistic rigor And his comic abilities come to life. Granted, he has a very intense and physically dynamic character to play, but Wood's interpretation still deserves credit for being as haunting as it is.

1 Dylan O'Brien as Dan Aykroyd

As a Canadian, I have known Aykroyd as a pop culture figure my entire life. So I see O'Brien – a former child star! one of the cuties on MTV Teen Wolf! The Maze runner yourself! – opening his mouth and speaking in Aykroyd's voice was amazing. Aykroyd's role is less flashy than his three male co-stars, but the transformation O'Brien achieves makes him by far the MVP of the film's not-quite-Not Ready for Primetime players.