Is There a New ‘SNL’ Episode Airing This Week?

We had an incredibly wild pandemic spring that saw “SNL” be forced to abandon its studio and shoot the last three episodes of season 45 remotely with each cast member in their own homes, and things have only ramped up during the standard “Saturday Night Live” summer hiatus.

It’s now October, and the coronavirus pandemic continues, but the show must go on. It’s still an election year, after all, and “SNL” has recruited Jim Carrey to fill the shoes of the Democratic nominee for president, Joe Biden, and is bringing back former “SNL” cast member Maya Rudolph to play his running mate, Kamala Harris — a role she played a few times in season 45.

They’ll be joining Alec Baldwin, who once again will be playing Donald Trump in season 46 of “SNL.” This is the fifth season in which Baldwin will play Trump. In season 45 he made eight totally appearances across the 18 episodes of the shortened season — including in two of the three quarantine episodes. In the finale episode, Baldwin delivered a Zoom commencement speech for high school seniors — the worst commencement speech ever, probably.

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This week, on Saturday, October 3, *there WILL be a new episode of “SNL.” *This week is, at long last, the premiere of season 46, which will be hosted by Chris Rock, with Megan Thee Stallion as the musical guest. For Rock, who was an “SNL” cast member from 1990 to 1993, will be hosting for just the third time. Though he’s popped up with cameo appearances nine other times, including for the Eddie Murphy-hosted episode from this past season.

It’s a shockingly timely return for the enduring sketch comedy series, with the episode set to air two days after Donald Trump’s positive COVD-19 test, and five days after a presidential debate in which Trump mocked Joe Biden for wearing a mask when he goes out in public.

With this episode being the first appearance of Jim Carrey as Joe Biden, one would have reflexively assumed coming into the week that we’d see him face off against Alec Baldwin as Donald Trump in a cold open sketch that parodies Tuesday’s debate. But with Trump in the hospital, that’s certainly not a given anymore.

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Whatever ends up happening, you can be pretty sure it’ll be very political. “SNL” tried to drift away from that political focus during season 44, but certainly didn’t shy away from politics in season 45 — a season in which the actual Elizabeth Warren popped up to play herself in a sketch.

The renewed focus on politics in season 45 was not just about mocking Trump, but also lampooning the circus that was the run up to the Democratic primaries. Not that the sketch show has in any way shied away from mocking Trump. The impeachment has certainly been a common topic for cold open sketches this season.

There was the one where Baldwin’s Trump went through his contacts list trying to find a fixer who could make the impeachment stop, ending with a call to Liev Schreiber playing himself — Trump thought his character Ray Donovan, a fixer on the eponymous Showtime series, was actually a real person.

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There was also that one where “SNL” sent up the impeachment hearings by doing a “Days of Our Lives” parody that starred Jon Hamm.

As for the madness with the Democratic primary, we had numerous big cameos in the debate sketches in season 45. The show tried out multiple different Joe Bidens last year, with Woody Harrelson taking up the role a couple times and Jason Sudeikis giving it a shot as well.

They also brought in many other celebs to play other candidates in the Dem primary, including Lin-Manuel Miranda as Julian Castro, Larry David as Bernie Sanders, Rachel Dratch as Amy Klobuchar, Fred Armisen as Michael Bloomberg, and Will Ferrell as Tom Steyer. Maya Rudolph also played Kamala Harris a few times, and it was only natural that they’d keep her around for season 46.

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That’s a lot of cameos, and “SNL” actually managed to jam nearly all of those folks into a single sketch — a 12-minute debate parody from a late November episode. Miranda did not appear in that one, but he had previously popped up as Castro in October in a parody of the Democrats’ LGBTQ town hall that was moderated by Billy Porter in character as himself.