SNL: Special Uncensored Treat

Saturday Night Live has found one area in which it's still cutting-edge: the internet. Specifically, posting uncensored video. According to The New York Times, SNL managed to circumvent the increasing power of the FCC, that protector of America's innocence, by posting an uncensored version of its censored skit about the holiday treat which Justin Timberlake and Andy Samberg have in their pants for you. (Yes, you.) This has been done before - the short-lived, Milo-infested Bedford Diaries posted an uncensored version of its pilot - but it's still rare, and I'm hopeful that this encourages more shows to get around censorship by posting scenes or full episodes as the writers originally intended them. Everybody wins: the viewers who don't want to see the possibly-objectionable material are still protected, because they aren't likely to go searching the internet for it, and the viewers who do want to see the original version have access to it.

Incidentally, this is the sort of on-air dilemma that I wish Studio 60 would have, instead of "we plagiarized a skit, except we didn't" and the Coconut/Fake Snow Hijinks of the Christmas episode. This issue is timely, rich with possibility, and involves censorship, one of Sorkin's favorite issues. Of course, it's also about the internet, so he'd never do it. He hates the internet more than he hates censorship.