Who is Hosting Saturday Night Live Tonight: October 21, 2017

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Get ready for the first SNL rerun of the new season, with Ryan Gosling as your repeat host tonight on Saturday Night Live!

It feels like Saturday Night Live just returned to television with the premiere of its 43rd season and Boom! We’re already back in reruns. That’s how it works with the most successful sketch comedy series in TV history. After three brand new Season 43 shows, SNL returns tonight at 11:30pm on NBC with a repeat. Executive producer Lorne Michaels always likes to pull his reruns from the current season, so that obviously doesn’t give NBC a lot to choose from so far. That’s why tonight’s encore SNL will be the Season 43 premiere with host Ryan Gosling from September 30, 2017.

This was Gosling’s second time hosting. He had previously hosted in late 2015 and made his mark in Saturday Night Live lore by becoming known as the host who couldn’t keep it together while performing in an alien abduction sketch opposite Cecily Strong and the insanely funny Kate McKinnon as Miss Rafferty who experienced an extremely invasive and graphic examination by the extraterrestrials when they took her on board their spaceship. If Gosling fans were hoping for more of him breaking the fourth wall by giggling like he was Jimmy Fallon, they weren’t disappointed. Ryan Gosling not only delivered on the hand-over-mouth snickering he’s known for in a repeat sketch about the alien kidnappings (once again because of McKinnon’s Miss Rafferty character), but he continued it during the entire show, showing off how irrepressible he is to his fan base.

The Season 43 SNL premiere re-airing tonight will feature the return of Alec Baldwin as President Donald Trump as expected. Baldwin’s Trump introduced the new season in the cold open by dealing with the President’s phone call with the Mayor of San Juan, Puerto Rico dealing with hurricane relief efforts. It was par for the course for SNL‘s Trump and the sketch also featured cast member Aidy Bryant going deeper into her character of White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders. Other returns from previous seasons included Kate McKinnon as German Chancellor Angela Merkel and featured player Alex Moffat as the overly compensating “Guy Who Just Bought a Boat”, with both appearing on Weekend Update.

As for the “something new” this season, that included three new featured cast members making their SNL debuts. The three newbies are comedian Chris Redd, musical comedian Luke Null and sketch and improv performer Heidi Gardner. These three filled in the gap left behind by departing cast members Bobby Moynihan, Vanessa Bayer and Sasheer Zamata. Plus behind-the-scenes, there are a slew of new writers this season who were also celebrating their Saturday Night Live premieres.

At the top of our list of things to watch for in tonight’s SNL repeat is Weekend Update. Michael Che and Colin Jost have been on fire since they’ve returned to the anchor desk this season. The two co-anchors light it up immediately talking about the President’s response to Puerto Rico’s desperate need for help in the wake of the destruction left behind by this year’s hurricane season. SPOILER ALERT: If you haven’t seen this episode yet, someone gets called a “bitch” during Weekend Update. Here’s your hint. He’s been painted orange in time for Halloween and he lives in the White House. Other topics covered by the WU team include Blindness Awareness Month, a fatberg, STDs and Saudi Arabia’s decision to allow women to drive.

As for tonight’s sketches, this is the Saturday Night Live episode that gave us “Levi’s Wokes“, in the first of the digital shorts featuring host Ryan Gosling. Also watch for him in another short called “Papyrus” where he stars as a conspiracy theorist investigating the font used by James Cameron in his film, “Avatar“. Live sketches in tonight’s repeat feature Gosling and Cecily Strong as a couple in an Italian restaurant who have a traumatic experience when they find out they’ve been duped into a secret taste test. Then there’s a bizarre sketch that includes a criminal on the lam and poultry, called “Henrietta and the Fugitive” which needs to be experienced if you haven’t seen it already. Because there’s no explaining it.

In the promos for tonight’s repeat show, SNL puts together a teaser montage remix of Ryan Gosling’s first time hosting back in 2015 and in the next set Gosling is joined by his musical guest for the evening JAY-Z (who has not only brought back the hyphen to the spelling of his name, but has also changed it to all caps as well) where their excitement is almost palpable and we get a promo outtake.

Ryan Gosling hosts tonight’s encore presentation of Saturday Night Live with musical guest JAY-Z at 11:30pm on NBC. And next week, in SNL‘s 11:30pm time slot is the premiere of The David S. Pumpkins Halloween Special. Any questions!?

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Ernie Tripper
Ernie Tripper