Take it away, Michael Kilgore…
At the end of your dream scenario of Alec Baldwin renouncing his role for the duration, I pictured that in my mind with him obviously reading the statement off cue cards, as he so often does, which would ruin the effect. I suppose that's a necessary trade-off for getting that level of celebrity to keep coming back, but I find staring offstage as noticeable as you find Colbert show editing.
In your variety show background (or elsewhere), have you ever had to nudge an Important Guest Star away from the cards to improve their performance?
No because all of the variety shows I worked on were taped and then edited for broadcast so the use of cue cards was severely limited. I only recall one or two times we used them on the shows I did for Sid and Marty Krofft and there were good reasons in those few instances.
I can almost justify the use of cue cards on Saturday Night Live because it is live and if an actor "dried up" (forgot his or her lines), you'd wind up with on-air break-ups or prompting or other breaches that are less professional than using cue cards. You're also dealing with a succession of guest hosts who don't have experience in live television and sometimes with sketches that are rewritten at the last minute. You kind of need the cards there in case of emergency. I would agree though that some actors aren't good at avoiding the kind of offstage staring that rankles you. When I worked with Dick Clark, he was real good at reading cue cards without looking like he was reading cue cards.