Saturday Night Live begins its 34th season this weekend, and while it's redundant to talk about a transition year on a show that has been through literally dozens of cast changes, NBC is positioning it for even bigger and better things this fall. The apparent goal: to make SNL the pop culture stop for political humor.

Political satire has been part of the mix on SNL since the beginning, and presidential election years have become particularly fruitful, with the 2000 debate sketch ("strategery!") considered the all-time standard not merely for humor, but for helping to set an agenda for the wider media. Political journalists are now using SNL as a sort of cultural weathervane, looking at what its writers choose to lampoon as a guide to what candidate quirks and tics ought to be considered ridiculous.

SNL got a taste of how this works last winter, when it returned from the writers' strike with a pair of shows that appeared to paint Barack Obama as a pampered media pet. These sketches tied in with an argument that the Hillary Clinton campaign was itself making, and when Clinton stayed alive with some big primary wins, SNL got much of the credit, something it no doubt had not sought. With the November vote looking like another squeaker, the show will be under heavy pressure not to play favorites.

Politics will be the bread and butter for Saturday Night Live at least through Election Day, and the show is going to be on its most brutal production schedule ever. There will be seven new SNLs between Saturday and the election, giving the staff just one off-week. Also, there will be three live SNL specials on Thursdays at 9:30 beginning on October 9, anchored by "Weekend Update" mainstays Amy Poehler and Seth Meyers.

As for who will handle the candidates in the inevitable debate sketches, one can't rule out a surprise appearance at some point by John McCain himself, as he is an old friend of SNL and even hosted it in 2002. But the main McCain man will be jack-of-all-trades mimic Darrell Hammond. Fred Armisen's portrayal of Barack Obama last season was widely panned, and the criticism went beyond Armisen not being black or not being able to do a very good impersonation -- after all, Will Ferrell's George W. Bush didn't sound much like Dubya. It was more that Armisen and the SNL writers couldn't find any way to make Obama interesting, let alone funny. If Obama wins in November, SNL will almost be forced to hire someone specifically to play the new president.

There has been a good deal of speculation about Tina Fey putting in appearances in the role of Sarah Palin, given their much-remarked upon resemblance. But Fey has her hands full with 30 Rock, and it's easier to imagine that Palin might serve as an opportunity instead for the underused Casey Wilson, who joined the cast last year but was given little to do.

Once the election is over, SNL has another hurdle to jump, as it will have to deal with the departure of the Emmy-nominated Poehler, who is expected to give birth sometime between now and the election, and will be heading off not long afterwards to work on the new sitcom previously described as an Office spinoff. Poehler is a unique figure in SNL history: while numerous talented women have been with the show over the years, she is the first who has been the unquestioned leader of the cast. Her departure will create a hole not unlike the one left by Ferrell several years ago, and while Lorne Michaels and co. have always coped in the past, there will be uncertainty until a new star emerges.

The only new cast member announced thus far is Bobby Moynihan, who has a comedy background that includes a stint with the Upright Citizens Brigade, which also gave us Poehler. At some point, look for at least one more woman to sign on; once Poehler leaves, only Wilson and Kristen Wiig will be left to hold up the two-X chromosome side of things. One reason often cited for why the SNL cast is typically 3/4 male is that they are needed for political sketches, since men run the country. If things go well for Palin, she might lead to a lot of funny women getting jobs, and not just on SNL.

Saturday's premiere will be hosted by Michael Phelps, who has been taking the pop culture Grand Tour since coming home from Beijing. He appeared at the Video Music Awards on Sunday introducing Lil Wayne, who will bring his size 64 pants to 30 Rock as the musical guest. Phelps comes across as awkward on land as he is graceful in the water, so this is going to be an episode carried almost entirely by the permanent cast. They have a summer's worth of news to play off of, but the coming weeks will test their creativity. With luck, the candidates will give the show bundles of ready-made material.

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