Entertainment

SOS SNL!

The departures of Bill Hader (from left), Fred Armisen, Kristen Wiig, Seth Meyers and, possibly, Jason Sudeikis have left “SNL” and Lorne Michaels reeling. (
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As he spun Kristen Wiig across the “Saturday Night Live” stage for her final bow on the show, while Mick Jagger softly sang “She’s a Rainbow,” Lorne Michaels embraced his star and smiled like he’d made peace with her departure.

But soon after the show ended, an old friend spotted Michaels inside his office on the ninth floor of 30 Rock standing alone, a pensive look etched on his face. That same night had seen the farewell of not just the brilliantly offbeat Wiig, but also of Andy Samberg, who engineered the show’s wildly popular “Digital Shorts” that made “SNL” go viral.

“He looked so deep in thought, and I could just see he was feeling the loss of some amazing performers,” remembers Chris Kattan, an “SNL” performer from 1995 to 2003. “He looked melancholy — not upset or sad — he looked like this is part of life, this is what happens.”

Michaels will be facing even more loss after this year’s finale Saturday. His head writer and Weekend Update anchor, Seth Meyers, will be leaving the show to host “Late Night” in February 2014. Bill Hader, the series’ strongest character actor, announced Tuesday he’s bailing, too.

In addition, a source at NBC has confirmed to The Post that, after months of rumors, veteran performer Fred Armisen will also be leaving the show. Headliner Jason Sudeikis will “probably” jump as well, the source said.

Those four men are what Kattan calls “tent poles” — the heavy-hitters who perform many of the sketches and characters most loved by fans. And with no established star anchoring the series next year, the future for “SNL” looks grim.

“If all four leave, it’s a lot for someone else to take on,” Kattan says. “Especially losing Seth, it seems like a lot.”

Next season, Kenan Thompson will be the most seasoned cast member, with a decade on the show. Next is Bobby Moynihan, with five years, and the rest have a measly few seasons or less under their belts. None have big name recognition or viral pull yet.

The audience hasn’t fallen in love with any of the remaining cast the way they embraced Hader’s giddy nightlife correspondent Stefon, Wiig’s cute yet creepy Gilly or Meyers’ affable delivery on the weekly news parody, Weekend Update.

Meyers says he’ll stick around this fall to at least help with Weekend Update until his late-night show launches.

And he says he trusts his boss, legendary producer Michaels, to keep the engine running without him at “SNL.”

“When you’re at a show for 12 years, you realize that no one is irreplaceable,” Meyers tells The Post. “When I go down the list of people who’ve left since I’ve been here, the urge has been to hit the panic button. But then I remember that it always sort of works out.”

But while Michaels has rejuvenated the cast in the past when there have been mass departures — bringing the show back from the brink of cancellation once in the ’80s and again in the ’90s — he’s now spread thinner than ever.

Next year, the 68-year-old Michaels will be producing “The Tonight Show With Jimmy Fallon” and rebuilding “Late Night” with new host Meyers while producing “SNL.” So, with his attention fixed on his new higher-profile shows, will he be able to reinvent the wheel at his flagship show yet again?

Michaels will move “The Tonight Show” to New York so all three shows will be down the hall from each other, making it easier for him to juggle. But there’s some doubt he can multitask 11½ hours of late-night programming a week.

“I think all eyes will be on Lorne now, and you gotta wonder if he’ll spend more energy on the weeknight shows and less on ‘SNL,’ ” says Brad Adgate, director of research at Horizon Media. “Has he spread himself too thin?”

(An “SNL” press person said Michaels was too busy to comment on this article.)

In 1995, the show suffered a huge blow with the exodus of major names like Chris Farley, Adam Sandler, Kevin Nealon, Jay Mohr and Chris Elliott, just one year after losing Phil Hartman and Rob Schneider.

But “SNL” bounced back fast — in a big way. Will Ferrell, Cheri Oteri, Darrell Hammond, Colin Quinn and Kattan were all brought on for the 1995-1996 season, ushering in a new era of beloved sketches like “The Spartan Cheerleaders,” “The Butabi Brothers” and “Mango.”

And, despite losing heavy hitters like Fallon (in 2004), Tina Fey (’06) and Amy Poehler (’08), “SNL” has maintained its ratings over the years.

Still, when Fey and Poehler left, they passed the baton onto emerging stars like Meyers and Wiig. With no obvious succession plan, some insiders predict a rough year ahead.

“It takes like a year to have a new cast work on characters and the audience has to learn people’s names, which is harder than it seems,” says Michael Schur, who wrote for “SNL” from 1998-2004.

In addition, Michaels’ new shows will be promoted this winter on NBC during the Olympics, and he will be expected to capitalize on a period of greater viewership.

“[Michaels] doesn’t have time for a ‘growing’ year because 200 million people are going to be watching NBC for the Winter Olympics next year,” adds Adgate.

Still, there is a benefit to having a no-star cast: With the senior players out of the way, freshmen can shine.

“I love Stefon more than anything,” Schur says. “But in sketch comedy, you can get enough of things. And without Stefon, new characters will emerge on Weekend Update.”

Quinn, whose one-man show “Unconstitutional” opens tonight at Barrow Street Theatre, has moved beyond his days at 30 Rock and says the audience will also get over the loss of Meyers, Hader and Armisen — and predicts “SNL” will rise from the ashes again.

“I don’t think they’ll be missed,” he says. “It’s like, yeah, you should leave; you can’t stay on the show forever. It’s like when Miley Cyrus shows up on the set of her Disney show one day with a cigarette and boyfriend and everyone is like, ‘What are we doing? You gotta go.’ ”

And if the young cast of “SNL” falls flat on its face?

“If you want to play it safe, then go into f - - king banking,” Quinn says. “The whole point of live TV is having no net to catch you. Who cares if it sucks next year? Good! It might just blow up, and then it’ll be great.”

Additional reporting by Michael Starr.

kstorey@nypost.com