Is Saturday Night Live new tonight, September 30?
By Matt Moore
Big news came to the world of late-night TV last week. So what should Saturday Night Live fans expect to see tonight on NBC?
The Writers Guild of America finally received an acceptable offer from the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers last week. It meant that writers in late-night TV and across Hollywood agreed to return to work after being on strike since May.
But while daily late-night TV shows have either already returned or have shows scheduled for next week, the same isn’t true for SNL. There will not be a new episode of Saturday Night Live tonight.
Instead, NBC will reair the March 4 episode during SNL’s normal timeslot. Capitalizing on recent news, the network chose to revisit Travis Kelce’s episode. Perhaps some Taylor Swift fans will tune in to learn even more about the Chiefs’ tight end.
Why isn’t Saturday Night Live new tonight?
Even if Hollywood wasn’t coming out of a writers’ strike, it’s unlikely that Saturday Night Live would be new tonight. Recent history shows that SNL prefers to start in early October rather than late September.
You’d have to go back to the season 45 premiere in 2019 to find when SNL began in September. But the good news is that the strike resolution happened early enough that SNL will likely get a full season. It’s a welcomed change over how unpredictable events like the pandemic and strike have cut past seasons short.
According to reports, Saturday Night Live has an idea of when it could return. The long-running sketch show has either October 7 or October 14 in mind for when it gets back to Studio 8H.
There hasn’t been any announcement about hosts or cast changes. It’s likely that everyone from season 48 will be back. That means there may not be any room to add any fresh faces, but Lorne Michaels has always done what he thinks is best for Saturday Night Live. And that includes waiting until just the right time for new episodes.