Saturday Night Live season 40

As part of an ongoing rebuilding process, which executive producer Lorne Michaels indicated would result in cast changes for the 2014–15 season, a number of those changes were announced prior to the start of the season. Longtime cast member Nasim Pedrad, who had been on the show for five seasons since 2009, announced her departure in June 2014, as she was to star on the Lorne Michaels-produced sitcom Mulaney. Following Pedrad's departure, featured players John Milhiser, Noël Wells, and Brooks Wheelan were all let go following the finale, after only one season with the cast. Additionally, Mike O'Brien, a writer for the show for four seasons before joining the cast at the start of the previous season, returned to the writers' room for this season, which would be his last as a writer. Despite his departure from the cast, O'Brien still made occasional appearances in several sketches throughout the season. Overall, of the eight cast members introduced during the previous season, only Beck Bennett, Kyle Mooney, Colin Jost, and Sasheer Zamata returned. Bennett, Jost, Mooney and Zamata remained as featured players. To fill the void following Pedrad, Milhiser, O'Brien, Wells, and Wheelan's departures, two comedians joined the cast at the start of the season: stand-up comic Pete Davidson, the first SNL cast member to have been born in the 1990s, and former SNL writer Michael Che as a Weekend Update co-anchor, replacing Cecily Strong, who remained in the cast. After making appearances on Weekend Update and in several sketches, writer Leslie Jones was promoted to the cast on October 20, 2014 as a featured player. Coinciding with the show's fortieth anniversary, SNL introduced a new logo created by design firm Pentagram. Cast roster Repertory players • Vanessa Bayer • Aidy Bryant • Taran Killam • Kate McKinnon • Bobby Moynihan • Jay Pharoah • Cecily Strong • Kenan Thompson bold denotes Weekend Update anchors Featured players • Beck Bennett • Michael Che • Pete Davidson • Leslie Jones (first episode: October 25, 2014) • Colin Jost • Kyle Mooney • Sasheer Zamata ==Writers==

Prior to the start of the season, five new writers were hired: Alison Rich, a performer with the Upright Citizens Brigade in New York; Nick Rutherford, a member of Los Angeles-based comedy group Good Neighbor; Natasha Rothwell, a performer with the Upright Citizens Brigade in New York; Streeter Seidell, CollegeHumor front page editor; Due to the departures of previous writing supervisors Marika Sawyer and John Solomon), fellow writers Chris Kelly, Sarah Schneider (both of whom previously joined the writing staff in 2011), and Kent Sublette (a writer since 2007) were named as the show's new writing supervisors. Leslie Jones left the writing staff after the third episode, after she was promoted to the cast with Jim Carrey's episode. As for the Weekend Update writing staff, Pete Schultz (who joined the Update writing staff in 2011), was named as the segment's head writer. Megan Callahan-Shah also joins the Weekend Update writing staff with the Dwayne Johnson hosted episode. This was the final season for Mike O'Brien, (an SNL writer for six years since 2009; who briefly returned to the writing staff this season after being in the cast for the previous one), and also Claire Mulaney, who joined the staff in 2013, as well as the only season for writers Natasha Rothwell, Nick Rutherford, and Alison Rich. ==Episodes==

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