Appearances by Tina Fey and the real GOP vice presidential nominee, Alaska governor Sarah Palin, boosted Saturday Night Live to its biggest overnight rating in 14 years, as the show garnered a 10.7 rating, 24 share in the 56 local markets metered by Nielsen Media Research, according to online reports.

Palin’s appearance was planned for weeks and SNL had typical fun with her appearance and playing her off Fey’s amusing imitation. One can be sure, it was not guest host Josh Brolin (star of Oliver Stone’s bombing comedy, W.) or musical guest Adele that pushed SNL to such unheard-of ratings success.

No, it was the Fey and Palin appearances that must be credited with such ratings success. Give Fey some nice Brazil vacation packages as a reward for her part in the success. Can’t offer Palin the same, though, without violating campaign contribution laws that her running mate, John McCain, helped create.

Despite being absent for two years launching her highly successful NBC comedy, 30 Rock, Tina Fey returned to her old Saturday Night Live stomping grounds to kick off the new season with a sharp satire of GOP VP candidate and current Alaska governor Sarah Palin, along with fellow SNL alum Amy Poehler as deposed Dem presidential hopeful and current NY Senator Hillary Rodham.

The pairing recalls the best moments of the first half of the this decade, when Fey and Poehler ruled SNL and the Weekend Update segment, and the opening sketch was as much a tribute to their on-screen comic chemistry as it was to Palin and Clinton.

The political season always strengthens SNL’s specialty of political satire and while it’s uncertain if and how often Fey may be available to return to SNL to reprise her Palin impersonation, especially if the GOP ticket takes the White House, what is certain is there wasn’t a funnier, sharper and more enjoyable sketch in the entire SNL season debut. It’s a pairing that is sure to be more in demand than a bunch of unlocked cell phones, especially iPhones.

Hopefully, it’s a sign of a coming resurgence for the thirty-year-old-plus sketch comedy standby.

Producers aren’t exactly inviting writers to a cozy weekend getaway at a Colorado bed and breakfast, but at least the two sides are talking again. The post-Thanksgiving efforts to resume negotiations have several TV writers and stars optimistic for an early resolution to the standoff between the Writers Guild of America and the Hollywood producers.

In fact, 30 Rock writer-producer Tina Fey, star of the NBC hit comedy, was recently seen in a video posted on TVSquad.com in which she says she’s optimistic that a resolution may be as close as a week away. That’s great news to TV viewers already annoyed that some of their shows didn’t get a full November sweeps run. The strike will definitely make TV-land more barren in December than it normally is, and if the strike drags on much longer, there could be no February sweeps to speak of, at least not in the normal, full-schedule sense of the word.

Let’s hope things go short and work out well for the writers; if they can get back in front of their word processors prior for a couple weeks prior to the winter holiday season, February sweeps could still be salvaged, as well as the seasons of most shows currently on strike-induced hiatus.