Friday, December 5, 2025

“Saturday Night Live” Season 51 Off to Rocky Start with Bad Bunny Opener and Amy Poehler-Hosted 2nd Episode Down in Ratings

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This past Saturday’s “SNL” was a ratings downer.

It was down 400,000 viewers from the opener a week before, and that wasn’t so great either.

The Bad Bunny opener scored 4.4 million, kind of a disappointment after all the hub bub about the Bunny performing at the Super Bowl. His TV ratings didn’t reflect his big album sales. Doja Cat was a disappointing musical guest.

The second episode was hosted by Amy Poehler, who we love and adore. But Role Model was the worst musical guest in a long time. He has one hit, no one cares, and it was performed badly. The surprise appearance of Vanity Fair’s new cover subject, Charlie XCX, didn’t help.

Seth Meyers and Tina Fey also put in cameos on the news desk with Poehler and Colin Jost and Michael Che. But unannounced cameos don’t pull in ratings.

There are new writers, but the show has not been very funny. Most of the skteches were duds, except for one at the very end, “Emo Mom,” in which Poehler came alive. Otherwise, most people no doubt switched it off and went to bed.

Sabrina Carpenter hosts this week and she’s the musical guest as well. After that, “SNL” needs some big hitters to get them through November sweeps — and some better writing. It’s just not sharp.

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Roger Friedman
Roger Friedmanhttps://www.showbiz411.com
Roger Friedman began his Showbiz411 column in April 2009 after 10 years with Fox News, where he created the Fox411 column. His movie reviews are carried by Rotten Tomatoes, and he is a member of both the movie and TV branches of the Critics Choice Awards. His articles have appeared in dozens of publications over the years including New York Magazine, where he wrote the Intelligencer column in the mid 90s and covered the OJ Simpson trial, and Fox News (when it wasn't so crazy) where he covered Michael Jackson. He is also the writer and co-producer of "Only the Strong Survive," a selection of the Cannes, Sundance, and Telluride Film festivals, directed by DA Pennebaker and Chris Hegedus.

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