Is a New SNL Episode on Tonight for NBC’s ‘Saturday Night Live’?

If you’re a fan of NBC’s Saturday Night Live, you might be wondering why there’s no new episode scheduled for tonight. After last Saturday’s episode aired live, the show went on a brief hiatus for the holidays. SNL returns in January 2019, continuing their 44th season with new episodes, celebrity hosts, and musical guests. NBC says that the show’s return will be “live coast-to-coast.”

This mid-season break is normal for SNL; Season 43 took a hiatus from December 16 to January 13, returning with host Sam Rockwell and musical guest Halsey. In 2017, season 42 took a break from December 17 to January 14 (Felicity Jones was the January 14 host and Sturgill Simpson was the musical guest). Though it is confirmed that season 44 will start back up on January 19, neither the host nor the musical guest for that episode has been announced. Saturday Night Live‘s twitter account didn’t announce their December line-up until the end of November, so don’t expect to know who will host their return episode until closer to the air date.

While there is no new episode of Saturday Night Live airing tonight, NBC has scheduled a previously-recorded episode of the show to air in that Saturday night time slot. According to the NBC programming schedule, Season 44 Episode 3, hosted by Seth Meyers with musical guest Paul Simon will air at 11:30pm ET. NBC will also air an episode from 2011’s season 37 of the show at 10:00pm ET; Jimmy Fallon was that episode’s host and Michael Bublé was the musical guest. The below sketch features both Fallon and Bublé, as Bublé attempts to record a Christmas album of duets with a myriad of “celebrities” (played by the cast and Fallon):

On December 15, NBC aired their Saturday Night Live Christmas Special; Matt Damon hosted, and Miley Cyrus and Mark Ronson were the musical guests. According to The Hollywood Reporter, this was Damon’s first time hosting the show since 2002. The holidays were a central theme for many of the sketches, and “It’s a Wonderful Trump” (a spoof on the 1947 Christmas classic, It’s a Wonderful Life) served as the episode’s cold-open, with Alec Baldwin returning to play President Donald Trump. Baldwin returned later in the episode for a sketch set in a bar.

Of the holiday episode, The Guardian reviewed that “All-in-all, this was a solid Christmas SNL. Damon was a popular host, Cyrus and Ronson put in two good performances, there were a few strong sketches and no outright bad ones. A happy swan song for 2018.” Notably, after posting an alarming message on Instagram earlier in the day, cast member Pete Davidson made a brief appearance in the Saturday night episode to announce Miley Cyrus and Mark Ronson’s second musical performance. Following the live episode, Entertainment Tonight reported that SNL’s executive producer Lorne Micheals “dropped Davidson’s SNL sketches on Saturday night to give him a break. The 25-year-old star is expected back on the show in the new year.”

The next episode of Saturday Night Live airs live on Saturday, January 19 at 11:30pm ET on NBC.

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