Is ‘SNL’ Live Tonight? Season 42 Returns For Final Three Episodes

After a short break following the April 15 episode, “SNL” returns tonight with a new episode as the series prepares for the Season 42 finale. Tonight’s live episode will be hosted by Chris Pine, who will be appearing on the show for his first time ever.

As promised, the newest “Saturday Night Live” episode will feature “SNL’s” new live coast-to-coast format where the episodes air live across all time zones. The new experiment has proven to be successful for the show, as the April 15 episode, which featured Melissa McCarthy as Sean Spicer, picked up its highest ratings since February.

NBC also claimed the episode did well online. According to a statement from the network, “Online, Nielsen Social tracked 457,000 interactions from 195,000 unique users, making last night’s ‘SNL’ the most social comedy broadcast of the month to date.”

“SNL — enjoying its most popular season in two decades — is part of the national conversation, and we thought it would be a great idea to broadcast to the west and mountain time zones live at the same time it’s being seen in the east and central time zones,” said Robert Greenblatt, Chairman, NBC Entertainment.

The online numbers prove that the series benefits from airing live across all timezones, as fans of the series can watch the show together, something NBC wanted to get done. “That way, everyone is in on the joke at the same time. Kudos to Lorne Michaels, the producers and cast for making SNL one of the most relevant and anticipated shows in the zeitgeist,” Greenblatt said.

Pine will be joined by musical guest LCD Soundsystem for the May 6 episode, while the musical guests for the final two episodes of the season were recently revealed. Joining host Melissa McCarthy on the May 13 “SNL” episode will be HAIM, while Katy Perry will take the stage when Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson hosts the season finale.

“Melissa McCarthy, who has appeared this season as White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer, will be returning May 13 to the ‘SNL’ stage for the fifth time as host. She will be joined by musical guest HAIM, who is set to release their highly anticipated sophomore album this summer,” read a statement from NBC.

If you’re hoping to attending the May 6 taping of “SNL,” the show’s Twitter account revealed that tickets will be given out on Saturday morning. “Standby tickets for this week's show with Chris Pine and @lcdsoundsystem will be given out at 7am on Saturday! #SNL,” the tweet read.

The final three episodes of “Saturday Night Live” will air at 11:30 p.m. EDT, 10:30 p.m. CDT, 9:30 p.m. MDT and 8:30 p.m. PDT on NBC.