For me, it's always been a toss-up between the 1st era, and the 2nd era (beginning with season 7).  The year they replaced everybody again, I watched for awhile... in fact, I taped a few of those and re-watched them recently.  I didn't like ANYONE on the show. And I was shocked, looking back, at how many of those people became famous later. But when they started on SNL, it was BAAAAAAAAD. I guess I just didn't hang around long enough to see them get better.