There’s no sign of Kate McKinnon returning to “Saturday Night Live” this weekend. She will likely miss her third week in a row. It’s funny that the show just doesn’t make a statement about it. McKinnon is still filming her “Tiger King” series called “Joe Exotic” for NBC’s Peacock streaming service in Australia. The two time Emmy winner is needed back on “SNL” but the cast is so big that they can soldier on without her for a little while.

Luckily, if you’re in McKinnon withdrawal, she’s a steady presence in phone commercials. She’s also in a Tostito commercial with Dan Levy of “Schitt’s Creek.”

Last year, fellow “SNL” castmates Cecily Strong and Aidy Bryant each missed the first half of the season because they were off filming their own series. They made it back after the Christmas break. This year, Strong is likely to be out from before Christmas through mid February. The reason is she has scored a very prestigious job.

Strong will be performing Lily Tomlin and Jane Wagner’s “The Search for Intelligent Life in the Universe” way off Broadway in a tryout at the Shed in Hudson Yards. She’s on from December 21st through February 2nd. Tomlin and Wagner have never let another actor replace Tomlin in this award winning play that will require Strong to take on many characters. It seems like she’d be perfect for it, though. If it works, conceivably Strong would have a performance piece that could not only go to Broadway but on the road forever. It will be interesting to see if Wagner and Tomlin have updated the piece at all as it’s from the early 80s.

That didn’t take long.

I told you on September 24th that “Law & Order SVU” would add Octavio Pisano as a regular And now they have done exactly that.

Pisano made a huge impact on the two hour season premiere as Joe Velasco, an undercover cop sent into SUV’s midst. The producers knew it, too. They really showcased him with a big story of his own.

“SVU” needed a leading man, especially one Benson can flirt with besides this endless sort of embarrassing high school thing with Stabler. These people are in their 50s and act like they’re in 8th grade.

So welcome, Detective Velasco.

Thank god. Just in the nick of time, “Curb Your Enthusiasm” is back on October 24th with an 11th season. (20 years, but who’s counting?)

The trailer has Jon Hamm, Seth Rogen, all the regular players, and Richard Lewis, recuperated after illness. Cheryl Hines, Susie Essman, Jeff Garlin, JB Smoove are all here. And Richard Kind! And, of course, the inimitable Larry David.

“Curb” will follow “Succession” on HBO Sunday nights.

Nick Cannon’s talk show finally emerged with ratings. And they were not great.

Cannon, host of “The Masked Singer,” brought in 400,000 viewers a day for his first week of broadcast. His show came in at the bottom of the talk show pack.

Cannon can learn how hard it is to find an audience from Drew Barrymore. In her second season, she still can’t muster more than 500,000 viewers.

Even Wendy Williams, on the air for years, only garners 600,000. And Williams is too ill to return to her show right now. If she can’t come back, some deal may be cooked for Cannon to take her stations and time slot.

But Cannon’s recent past supporting Louis Farrakhan and making anti-semitic statements won’t find him a large audience. He can’t even get ex wife Mariah Carey to be a guest.

Meantime, “Jeopardy!” was up to 5.5 million the week of October 3rd thanks to Matt Amodio’s run of winning games. But he has just one week of shows left. Then we’ll see what happens.

It’s the final blow for Roseanne Barr tonight on The Conners.

Roseanne Conner, killed off at the beginning of Season 2 of the “Roseanne” spin off, really gets the ultimate diss in this new episode.

Roseanne’s widower, Dan, remarries, to Louise, played by Katy Sagal of “Married with Children” fame. Louise has become a popular character, and fully erased ol’ Roseanne once and for all.

Barr isn’t even profiting off the characters she created for the original series. She had to give that all up when she Tweeted racist comments at the end of Season 1. Then she doubled down on those comments by backing Donald Trump and basically losing her mind in public.

Roseanne was killed off at the start of the second season. This season, even more of her death was discussed, just in case we didn’t get it: she’s dead and not coming back.

Now with Louise’s ascension into the Conner household. Roseanne has been obliterated. Of course, “The Conners” ratings aren’t so great anymore since ABC moved the show from Tuesdays at 8 to Wednesdays at 9. This might be the last season of the spin off. If not, the end will come with Season 5 to be sure.

Here’s a warning: don’t watch “Succession” Season 3 before you go to bed. You will definitely have nightmares.

I watched three in a row, in ‘succession’, last night and boy was I anxious.

The HBO hit is the family version of Showtime’s “Billions,” but with less fun and more angst. Where “Billions” is juicy and delicious, “Succession” is bitter and dry. It’s “Veep” written by Ibsen.

The Roy family is very much a reflection of Rupert Murdoch and his lovely adult children. Instead of News Corp they won Waystar, the largest family owned media conglomerate in the world. Logan Roy (Brian Cox) is Murdoch, or in this case, also King Lear. The four adult children are vying to succeed him. They are Kendall Roy, played by Emmy winner Jeremy Strong; Siobhan, whose nickname is, LOL, Shiv, the wonderful Sarah Snook; Kieran Culkin as Roman Roy; and Alan Ruck as the eldest, Conner Roy.

We also have cousin Greg, who takes a larger role this season in the person of Nicholas Braun; Shiv’s husband, Tom (Matthew MacFadyen); and the company’s lawyer, Gerri, the only person of reason, played by the impeccable J. Smith-Cameron.

At the end of Season 2, Logan’s misdeeds — which are many including lots of MeToo stuff — are revealed, secret papers are leaked to the SEC and FBI, Logan throws Kendall under the bus, and Kendall turns against the family.

And here are. The first three episodes are a psychological chess game that should be called Kill or Be Killed as everyone jockeys for position. These people are brutal. JR Ewing would not last a day with them. No one is happy, no one even smiles. They are calculating, ironic, avaricious, snarky, downright mean. The constant second guessing, positioning, re-positioning will leave you exhausted. If this is what goes on in the real Murdoch family, I feel sorry for them.

But then you have the acting, which is so strong it’s frightening. Strong just won an Emmy, and he will win again. Kendall is haunted, destroyed, a shell of a human being. He’s committing corporate and familial suicide. Or is he? Because what the writers telegraph constantly is that even when Kendall reaches his lowest point, he will always be welcomed back. And by the end of episode 3, season 3 his situation looks pretty bleak.

Everyone loves Sarah Snook as Shiv, and Kieran Culkin as Roman, the Lannister-esque siblings who are shiny and young and as vulnerable as they are destructive. But the key to Season 3 looks like it will be cousin Greg, who is not as stupid as he seems. And I’m crazy about Sanaa Lathan joining as Kendall’s wily Lisa Allred-Bloom type lawyer. In fact, many of Logan’s so called crimes, etc seem more like Harvey Weinstein’s than Rupert Murdoch’s. The writers have laid it on thick.

So off we go. After a nap and a drink I’ll ingest the next three episodes and report back. But we’re in for one hell of a ride this season. And Adrien Brody — who I reported first had joined the cast– hasn’t even shown up yet!