Is Saturday Night Live new tonight, February 23?

We’ve seen a host also perform as musical guest and an Oscar-nominated actor take the stage. Will we have three straight weeks of Saturday Night Live?

Saturday Night Live is the show I’ve watched consistently for the longest time in my life. The Simpsons has fallen off in quality hard after the 90s, and the balance between childish comedy and undertones of highbrow self-awareness of Family Guy has long turned to the lowest common denominator.

I must preface that statement before noting that not since the Ebersol era has the quality of Saturday Night Live been so dire, uninspired and scary for the future of the show. When Halsey has better material being trotted out in her musical performances (painting and singing, even with marked lines, is an impressive talent), it’s concerning for the production of the show proper.

Consider the recurring sketches introduced to us so far in Saturday Night Live season 44. We have Diedre, a woman who comes back from vacation pretending she’s a native of that culture. It’s basically the setup of Gemma but the inappropriateness being “we’re not that culture; isn’t that weird?” That’s the entirety of the joke.

Then we have Beck Bennett and Kyle Mooney as brothers who get into inappropriate arguments and wear 90s-era big t-shirts as pajamas. It’s already floundered in its second appearance, which is better than Jules, who sees things a little differently, on Weekend Update; Beck’s shtick is a less-self-aware version of “Guy who just bought a boat.”

The only new recurring sketch that’s done fairly well both times it has appeared this season is Them Trumps; a reimagined version of the Trump family as African-Americans in an Empire-like vibe. Of course, the punchline remains fairly predictable, and I’m sure the setup becomes drastically less funny unless they provide a twist the third time out.

Saturday Night Live is not new this week, as the show will take a week off before bringing back John Mulaney as host with Thomas Rhett as a first-time musical guest. The show is smart to bring back a host that worked well last time and does so with a quicker turnaround than we’ve seen most hosts return to SNL.