SNL: Is Saturday Night Live new tonight, December 29?

SNL had an up and down year throughout 2018, with season 43 ending on a strong note and season 44 stumbling early. Will Saturday Night Live return this year?

When people think back fondly of Saturday Night Live and the “good old days” of the show, they are often thinking about the highlight sketches or key performers and dissociating themselves from all the hit-and-miss content. This show has always employed the shotgun approach, and no better a year exemplifies this notion than 2018.

Out the gate, Sam Rockwell dropped one of the show’s rare F-bombs in one of the worst first-time hosting gigs from an established dramatic actor. It wasn’t until Sterling K. Brown stepped it up in March that he showed the strength of letting loose and giving up your seriousness as an actor.

From there, it really sent the end of SNL season 43 on a drastic uptick, with Chadwick Boseman and John Mulaney pulling out excellent first-time stints, Bill Hader showing his expertise in the craft and Donald Glover setting the world on fire by debuting two brand new songs, including Pitchfork-excluded “This Is America.”

As season 43 came to a close, we got no Weekend Update – Thursday Edition over the summer, which made little sense considering how contentious the political discourse was over this year. It set up a bombastic debut to Saturday Night Live season 44, with Matt Damon making the rare appearance in sketch comedy to appear as Brett Kavanaugh.

From that first sketch on, however, Saturday Night Live season 44 stumbled. Adam Driver had one solid sketch, but sloppy writing and a bizarre series of performances from Kanye West dragged things down. Whether it’s the camera work, the strength of the writing staff, the reliance on more pre-filmed content than ever before or poor cue-card reading, it seems as though the show has failed to fire on all cylinders for one episode.

As such, I’m certain NBC is going to take a bit more time before the show returns to the air. Saturday Night Live is not new tonight, as it would be downright cruel to have the cast and crew stay in New York for the holidays and not be home with their families.