Taran Killam and Jay Pharoah are out at Saturday Night Live, but they're in at Showtime.
The SNL vets found out they were cut from the show earlier this week, but both have signed pilot deals with Showtime, Entertainment Weekly reports. The network made the announcement Thursday at the TCA Summer Press Tour. Killam will star in the tentatively titled Mating, a comedy anthology that will have a new protagonist every season; in this incarnation, Killam will play a newly divorced man who married young and is trying to figure out the modern dating scene. Pharoah will star in the comedy White Famous, with executive producer Jamie Foxx. Pharoah will portray a rising comedian attempting to keep his credibility as he becomes mainstream.
The network said they began working on the deals before the news came out that Killam and Pharoah, who both spent six years at Saturday Night Live, would not be returning for their seventh season. Showtime President and CEO David Nevins said they were preparing to work around their SNL schedules, but everything became much easier "when they ended up being released from the show."
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