Tonight’s tremendously unfunny “Saturday Night Live” is over. And Alec Baldwin has missed his third week in a row playing Donald Trump.
It’s November ‘sweeps’ when advertisers measure ratings for pricing. Baldwin has missed the entire sweeps period thanks to his untimely arrest on November 2nd.
It’s not as though Baldwin, a guest on the show, is on every week. But he’s been on pretty consistently since Donald Trump ran for president, and he’s won some awards for the role, too.
But since the arrest for allegedly punching a man over a parking space in front of his apartment house, Baldwin has been MIA.
His talk show on ABC, which was sinking in the ratings anyway, has also been pulled from Sunday night and may re-surface in December on Saturdays.
No Baldwin as Trump is a kick in the gut for “SNL.” He’s the linchpin of the “SNL” political sketches, almost always in the cold open. With Trump committing any number of embarrassing gaffes every week in real life, Baldwin’s rendition of him is good for a sure fire, trenchant laugh.
But it’s obvious NBC has removed him from the show for the time being. And that has created a hole in “SNL” that’s getting bigger every week. Trump was absent from the Election sketches, already causing a problem. Tonight’s show, light on politics, could have had Trump giving Jim Acosta his press pass back, or visiting the California wildfire and telling officials to rake the forest.
When will Alec’s visit to purgatory end? Soon, it’s hoped.
