This week is ending on a positive note for Taran Killam and Jay Pharoah. On Monday, news broke that they would not be in Saturday Night Live’s cast when it returned for its 42nd season in the fall. Killam made it clear in an interview with Uproxx that he wasn’t eager to depart, but Pharoah hasn’t really commented outside of a sweet-but not-very-telling Instagram photo. But, never fear, you’ll see these two very soon. It was announced at the Television Critics Association summer press tour today that both have lined up Showtime series.
Killam will star in Mating, an anthology series about romance executive produced by Jason Katims. The hook? Each season of the show will deal with a different protagonist’s love life. Killam’s character is described as “a recently divorced guy who married young and now finds himself completely unprepared for the brave new, frank and fluid world of dating and hooking up.” As for Pharoah, he’ll be the lead in White Famous, the brainchild of Jamie Foxx, who will executive produce alongside Tom Kapinos and Tim Story. Pharoah will play comedian Floyd Mooney. Per a release, Floyd’s “star is rising, forcing him to navigate the treacherous waters of maintaining his credibility as he begins to cross-over towards becoming ‘white famous.’”
Variety reports that, according to Showtime’s David Nevins, neither Killam nor Pharoah had to leave SNL in order to get cast in these projects. “We were prepared to work around their SNL schedules, and so our scheduling got easier when they ended up getting released from the show,” Nevins said. So now we’re still left to speculate what was going through Lorne Michaels’ mind during all of this, but at least we know Killam and Pharoah landed on their feet.