Saturday Night Live has produced a rather sporadically scheduled season this year, mainly because Lorne Michaels and company decided to front-load it with political content during the presidential election. As a result, the months of January, February, March and April have seen only two new episodes each. May, however, will be slightly different since the 42nd season’s final three episodes will be spread across the first three of its four total weekends. Which is great, since that means SNL fans won’t have to wait at least two weeks for new episodes before the show goes dark for the summer.
Unless, as New York Times reporter John Koblin noted, the Writers Guild of America and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers are unable to reach an agreement by May 1st. SNL is one of many shows that would be affected by the increasingly likely writers’ strike should this happen. Being a weekly show, it and other late night comedy programs — especially daily ones like The Tonight Show and The Late Show, depend on their writing staff’s constant presence. So if the WGA decides to strike come May, the final three hosts and musical guests of SNL 42 may not get their shot in the spotlight.
Wonder Woman co-star Chris Pine and LCD Soundsystem will headline May 6th, Sean Spicer impersonator extraordinaire Melissa McCarthy and Haim will perform May 13th, and Baywatch‘s Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson will close out the season with musical guest Kate Perry on May 20th. All of which sounds fantastic, especially if “The Rock Obama” retakes the White House from Alec Baldwin’s Donald Trump in the season finale.
(Via New York Times)
