SNL sinks into reruns in October – baseball playoffs to blame?

Three weeks after SNL began its season, the NBC sketch comedy show has shut its season down – for a week, anyway. Why Saturday Night Live would choose to air a repeat this week – in this case, the season premier which first aired a whopping three weeks ago – is anyone’s guess. Some have pointed to the fact that Major League Baseball is well into its playoffs right now. But while that’s enough to explain why FOX has bumped some of its own prime time shows off the air for the rest of the month to make room for the games, it doesn’t exactly explain why SNL would give up on airing a new episode tonight altogether, particularly considering that the nationally televised baseball game wrapped a good twenty minutes, even on the east coast, before SNL is set to air.

This is an era in which SNL it trying just about everything to right the ship, including unusual host choices along the lines of Betty White and Taylor Swift (both of which worked well, for the record), as well as a continual parade of former SNL cast members who just happen to still work in the NBC building (Tina Fey, Jimmy Fallon, Amy Poehler). So one has to wonder if tonight’s re-airing, which is certainly cheaper than putting on a new episode, is just an attempt to cash in on the curiosity of those who heard about the infamous Katy Perry / Elmo sketch but didn’t see it the first time around (if only – insert sarcasm here – there were some way of going on ones computer and watching clips from television shows they’d missed).

In any case, enjoy your SNL rerun tonight. Saturday Night gets back to being “Live” next week. Here’s more on tonight’s SNL episode.