Who is Hosting Saturday Night Live Tonight: March 30, 2019

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Tonight on SNL, a Canadian actor of Korean descent who stars in a British drama, hosts an American comedy show as Saturday Night Live makes history with host Sandra Oh!

Studio 8-H at Rockefeller Center in New York City is buzzing with excitement about tonight’s all new SNL because the star of the BBC America thriller, “Killing Eve“, Sandra Oh, is hosting. In the past, it was a rare night when an Asian woman would host SNL. In fact, you could count on one hand the amount of times an Asian woman has been the host of Saturday Night Live. Actually, you could have lost two fingers in a shop class accident and still count on one hand the amount of times an Asian woman has been the host of Saturday Night Live.

This evening, Sandra Oh becomes the third woman to do it. In all fairness to SNL, it is becoming less of a rare occasion because two of those women (Awkwafina and Sandra Oh) have both hosted this season. So, if you’re only counting SNL – Season 44, this happens a lot! By the way, the first Asian woman to host was Lucy Liu during SNL – Season 26 in 2000. No need to take notes, Sandra Oh will most likely mention all this in tonight’s monologue. Saturday Night Live is very good at showing how woke it is as a series.

The other thing Sandra Oh will be doing tonight is promoting the season 2 premiere of her award winning series, “Killing Eve” on BBC America. On the intense drama, Sandra plays Eve Polastri, a bored-with-her-job MI5 officer with aspirations of becoming a spy and obsessions over a top-level cold-blooded assassin named Villanelle who loves the life that only a hired killer can afford. The season 2 premiere of “Killing Eve” happens Sunday, April 7th at 8pm on BBC America.

If you haven’t caught “Killing Eve” yet, you probably know Sandra Oh from the 9 seasons she played Dr. Cristina Yang on the ABC prime time medical drama “Grey’s Anatomy,” which is the role that earned her 5 Primetime Emmy nominations. You may also know her from the late 20th century days of HBO when she co-starred on the premium channel’s sitcom “Arli$$” about a famed sports agent, created by and starring Robert Wuhl. She played Rita Wu, Arliss’s devoted personal assistant. Sandra Oh is also known for letting her voice do the work for her. She’s played the voice of Hiko Yoshida, the mother of Toshi and Akiko on FOX’s “American Dad!” animated series. Besides “Killing Eve“, Sandra Oh’s most recent show biz gig was co-hosting this year’s Golden Globe Awards with Andy Samberg. Not only did Sandra Oh co-host, she also went home with one of the trophies. Usually that’s frowned upon as a host, but Sandra Oh earned it for Best Performance by an Actress in a Television Series ― Drama for “Killing Eve“. It was the second Golden Globe win of her career with the first one being for “Grey’s Anatomy.” Trying her hand at award show comedy must have worked out well enough for Sandra Oh to return to NBC tonight to host Saturday Night Live. This is her first time hosting. Sandra joins the ranks of 10 other first-time hosts during this current SNL season. All these new hosts this year are really holding back some of the repeat hosts who are trying to get to their 5th SNL hosting gig and earn their prestigious Saturday Night Live Five-Timers Club smoking jacket.

Looking at what might be on tap for tonight’s new SNL, it seems like if there was an episode meant for Alec Baldwin’s Donald Trump impression, it would be this one. This will be the first new edition of Saturday Night Live since Special Counsel Robert Mueller finished his report which took from May 17, 2017 until March 22, 2019 when Mueller finally sent his completed work to Attorney General William Barr. Will Baldwin be on hand tonight to play a victorious Trump? We’ll see tonight if Baldwin returns to play the Commander-in-Chief who came up with his own findings by falsely shouting out “complete and total exoneration” after hearing AG Barr’s interpretation of the report. Also, will Robert De Niro be back to play Special Counsel Robert Mueller one last time? Will the other SNL‘s cameo performers who have played the beleaguered Trump gang during the investigation be on hand this evening? And will they still have their Saturday night part-time jobs after this evening’s show? Tune in tonight on NBC to find out.

Other situations involving the President that may show up on Saturday Night Live tonight in some sort of joke form include the Bush Family’s increased criticism of Donald Trump including former President George W. Bush working in some not-so-well hidden jabs at the Chief Executive during the A&E Network’s upfronts this past week and also, there’s an especially terse excerpt from the new book about the late former First Lady Barbara Bush called “The Matriarch” where Mrs. Bush claims Trump caused her to have a heart attack. There’s probably a joke in there somewhere about how the nation’s first KFC President gives heart attacks, but somehow never has one himself.

Now oddly enough, there’s things going on in the world besides Trump for SNL to skewer in its sketches, shorts and on Weekend Update this evening. The college admissions scandal story broke while Saturday Night Live was on its spring break. On Update, Jost & Che are sure to mention how actors Felicity Huffman and Lori Loughlin we’re caught up in the sting operation and how they’re both facing serious jail time along with how Loughlin’s daughter is no longer speaking to her now that the YouTube mogul considers her life ruined. And as a bonus, hopefully we’ll get a “Full  (or Fuller) House” sketch or short where Aunt Becky is led away in handcuffs while a standard sitcom laugh track plays.

Other items on the list of things for SNL to possibly ridicule tonight include the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament with our entire nation of broken brackets to go with it, plus there’s Jussie Smollett miraculously having all charges against him dropped in his fictitious hate crime attack in Chicago, also the start of Major League Baseball’s new season, and Rosie O’Donnell confessing a crush on her former co-host from “The View“, Elisabeth Hasselbeck including Drama Queen Elisabeth’s homophobic reaction to Rosie.

Meanwhile, back at the White House…please, please SNL! Please bring back cast member Kate McKinnon in her spot-on impression of clueless Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos on Weekend Update to explain how she became Public Enemy #1 this week by wanting to cut all federal funding for the Special Olympics, only to be thrown under the bus by her boss, President Trump, who stopped the cuts and once again looks like a hero to his constituents by fixing this mess that his administration made in the first place.

The Weekend Update anchors will most likely take time to mention that they will be part of pro wrestling’s premiere annual event, WWE’s WrestleMania next month. For a few weeks now, Colin Jost and Michael Che have been appearing on WWE’s RAW to promote that they’ll be the special correspondents for this year’s card at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey on April 7th. Long story short, Jost and Che have now found themselves as participants in this year’s Andre the Giant Memorial Battle Royal at WrestleMania 35. Let’s just say, here’s another fine mess Colin Jost has gotten Michael Che into! For more details on how the SNL comedians found themselves in the wrestling ring, check out the IBang’s coverage of “Weekend Update Meets WWE: Jost and Che Heading to WrestleMania.”

In the promos which we’ve provided below for tonight’s all-new Saturday Night Live, host Sandra Oh takes on cast member Mikey Day in the world famous SNL Marshmallow Test administered by cast member Beck Bennett. In the next set, Sandra is joined by musical guest Tame Impala and cast member Kenan Thompson as they check on the first-time host’s nerves and announce a special guest for the show in a way too early April Fools’ joke. And in a bonus promo for this week, Saturday Night Live asked Sandra Oh what her SNL “Favorite Moments” are from over the show’s history. We’ll let you watch for yourselves, but one of her choices is an Amy Poehler / Maya Rudolph classic, one involves a fellow Canadian which makes Sandra very proud, then there’s a Superstar, something Justin Timberlake put in a box and one that brought Sandra Oh to very real tears.

Sandra Oh goes live tonight across all American time zones with a brand new episode Saturday Night Live featuring musical guest Tame Impala at 11:30pm et on NBC.

SNL returns live next week on Saturday, April 6th with your host from HBO’s “Game of Thrones“, Kit Harington!

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Ernie Tripper
Ernie Tripper