Old School. Biblically Independent.
By Dustin Rowles | TV | October 5, 2023
Saturday Night Live will be back not this Saturday but the next, October 14th. SAG-AFTRA is cool with whoever wants to appear either as a guest or as a cast member. Hopefully, it won’t matter because hopefully, the strike will be over by the 14th, as negotiations are still ongoing and quiet (which is good). There are promises to return to the table on Friday and even on Monday (Indigenous Peoples’ Day) to continue negotiating.
Pete Davidson, who was scheduled to host SNL before the strike ended last season, will return to host the season premiere along with musical guest Ice Spice. Bad Bunny will host and be a musical guest the following week. It looks like the entire cast will continue this season, along with one new cast member, Chloe Troast, who already has experience working with the Please Don’t Destroy guys. This will be Kenan’s 20th season.
In renewals: Only Murders in the Building will be back for a fourth season, which I’m reasonably happy about if only because the trio of Steve Martin, Martin Short, and Selena Gomez are so good together. But I’m a little wary of the show wearing out its welcome. Five seasons, tops, please.
Nickelodeon is also renewing Spongebob Squarepants for a 15th season (during its 25th year). I don’t know about y’all, but I attribute Gen Z’s bizarre, scatterbrained, and amusingly absurd sense of humor to Spongebob.
In cancellation news, I am really bummed that ABC pulled the plug on Home Economics after three seasons, especially after letting it drift in the wind for so long. There aren’t a lot of great sitcoms on network television, and Home Economics wasn’t great. But it was good, and I had hoped that the success of Abbott Elementary would encourage the networks to make — and stick with — more comedies.
Also, Paramount+ has canned the iCarly reboot after three seasons. Sounds right.
Finally, I don’t even think that Freeform is trying anymore. They’ve canceled everything. There’s almost nothing remaining on their schedule — even Cruel Summer’s fate is unknown — and now they have pulled While You Were Breeding, an hourlong comedy based on Kristin Newman’s memoir. The show had already wrapped production and just needed post-production. It will be shopped elsewhere.
