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Instead of chronicling the “eras” (hasn’t that already been done?), the Peacock documentary plucks out concepts and lets you see how the sausage is made.

The first episode, “Five Minutes,” shows what cast members had to do to get on the program. The results are brutal. Director Robert Alexander shows the performers watching their auditions and – like Amy Poehler – even they can’t stand them. Within those five minutes, however, you can see the germ of something that later blossomed. Characters – something the producers ask auditioners to come with – are embryonic, but recognizable. Kristen Wiig’s Target lady, for example, was something she did years earlier. Fred Armisen has a joke that would land anywhere.

And then there’s Donald Glover doing his impersonation of Chris Rock and Stephen Colbert pretending to be a waiter. Neither made it.

While you can feel the tension you can also sense the determination. “It’s a really tough job,” Pete Davidson says. But, adds Joe Piscopo, “you’ll never talk about anything else for the rest of your life.”

Perhaps realizing others have detailed the “early” casts, this doesn’t dwell on anyone pre-1980. It gives you a big chunk from the middle years and whets the appetite for other courses.

The second segment, “Written in a Week,” lets some of those writer/performers weigh in on the process of putting up a broadcast like this. It’s like being back in high school and waiting for the cast list to be posted.

When a host arrives on the first day, the writers pitch concepts, then go to work. Nothing hits immediately, but the staff keeps punching things up and waiting for those table reads. There it can be worse than oral critiques at a speech contest. Many don’t laugh; some offer “pity” laughs. As the week progresses, those writers most likely to get their skits on the show work with set, costumer and wig designers hoping to land something solid. The big test, though, comes on show day when creator Lorne Michaels chooses the ones that will make air. It’s a grueling process that conjures every sickening moment you’ve had in life.

The trick to making a sketch work is impossible to state. In the third episode, “More Cowbell,” the documentary takes a deep dive into a Will Ferrell sketch that hung around for years. It was based on a Blue Oyster Cult song, “(Don’t Fear) The Reaper,” and what might have happened in the recording studio. It made the show the week Christopher Walken was hosting and, even then, it wasn’t likely to be iconic. Walken underplayed rehearsals; Ferrell didn’t have strokes of performance brilliance until the dress rehearsal was done.

“More Cowbell” makes a little too much out of the sketch (particularly when there are others that deserve the micro-surgery) but it shows how that defining moment can be the difference between success and failure. Members of Blue Oyster Cult and a cowbell manufacturer weigh in, too, but this largely hinges on the one-two Ferrell/Walken punch. Interestingly, Walken doesn’t talk about the skit, even for this documentary.

The four-part series ends with “The Weird Year,” Season 11, when Michaels came back to the show and repopulated it with newcomers. The overhaul (from a season of all-stars like Billy Crystal and Martin Short) was glaring. The year had plenty of bright spots, but if an audience decided it was dead, it was dead. Michaels had Francis Ford Coppola write and direct an episode (trying to help the actors find those big moments) and gave Penn and Teller magic spots that probably gave birth to their cable specials. Because network head Brandon Tartikoff was likely to axe the show, the final episode features baseball manager Billy Martin culling the herd and setting fire to the locker room. Over the close: “Who will survive?” The “weird” season, however, gave birth to what seems like eternal life for the show. Like Bobby Ewing in “Dallas,” Madonna appeared on the next season opener and declared it was a dream. The variety show had risen from its own ashes and, presumably, was bulletproof.

While the end doesn’t look like it’s in sight for “SNL,” it’s clear one aspect never goes away: fear of failure. It’s what has fueled 50 years of the iconic series.

"SNL50: Beyond Saturday Night" is now airing on Peacock.