Lorne Michaels is going to wrap up season 49 of “Saturday Night Live” on a ratings high.
This past weekend’s show, with Dua Lipa as host and musical guest, grabbed 4.74 million viewers. That was up a notch from the previous outing with Ryan Gosling and Chris Stapleton.
Both shows were vast improvements over the dreadful outing with Ramy Youssef a few weeks ago. That installment will pull down the season’s averages with its anemic 3.99.
Michaels is on a roll, booking powerhouse hosts and performers and cameo players. It’s a real comeback post-pandemic. He will enter year 50 at the top of his game, of course. No one has lasted as long as Lorne Michaels in TV history. It’s an extraordinary story. Not only has he kept the show going for five years, but the list of stars he created is stunning. Plus, he’s running all of NBC’s late night with Jimmy Fallon and Seth Meyers.
The next two “SNL” episodes will be hosted respectively by Maya Rudolph and Jake Gyllenhaal. Their musical guests will be Vampire Weekend and Sabrina Carpenter. You know both shows will be packed with surprise cameos, the first since Rudolph is a beloved alum (Tina, Amy?).
And then we head to the fall. Sarah Sherman and Marcello Hernandez have been big breakout stars this season, that’s for sure. So we’ll see who makes the cut for the 50th. It’s going to be a banner year. And then? Does Lorne retire? Not so fast, I don’t think. He has a lot of game left in him.
