Television

'Saturday Night Live' Will Air Live Coast-To-Coast All Season, Gets A Museum Exhibit In Chicago

Saturday Night Live Season 43
By Ethan Anderton

In just 10 days, we'll be getting a brand new episode of Saturday Night Live to kick off the 43rd season of the landmark, late night sketch comedy series from NBC. Ryan Gosling has been tapped to host the season premiere with Jay-Z serving as musical guest, and we'll see if the show can keep the momentum from the high ratings last season earned thanks to the lampooning of a certain spray tan president. While we'll have no idea what sketches to expect until the night of, there is one way we know SNL will try to keep the hype around the show alive.

NBC has announced that every new episode of Saturday Night Live this season will air live from coast-to-coast, just as the final three episodes of the previous season did. That means everyone on the west coast will be watching the show live at the same time as everyone on the east coast, and so will everyone in between. But SNL fans have even more to look forward to this fall.

Saturday Night Live made the announcement about airing live coast-to-coast all over social media:

The biggest reason for Saturday Night Live season 43 taking this route is to build social media buzz while people across the nation watch live at the same time. Without people on the east coast ruining the surprises of the live broadcast, people on the west coast feel more of an urgency to watch the show live, especially with the added bonus of potentially seeing something happen that otherwise might get edited thanks to the usual tape delay the west coast used to deal with.

Will this help ensure that Saturday Night Live's new season pulls in the same high ratings they landed last season? It certainly couldn't hurt, but with Alec Baldwin showing up less as Donald Trump this season, and likely no more Melissa McCarthy as Sean Spicer, the writers will need to ensure that their material is top notch to keep viewers enticed. One thing that might help is the potential return of David S. Pumpkins, as teased by Tom Hanks recently.

Anyway, in addition to a new season of Saturday Night Live on the way, fans of the sketch comedy series will be able to experience SNL in a whole new way.

Saturday Night Live Museum Exhibit

Saturday Night Live Gets a Museum Exhibition in Chicago

Saturday Night Live: The Experience is coming to the Museum of Broadcast Communications in Chicago, allowing fans to learn everything they ever wanted to know about how the show comes together. There will also be photo ops in reconstructions of the most iconic sets from Saturday Night Live, from the mainstage in Studio 8H where the monologue takes place to the Weekend Update news desk and from the basement set of Wayne's World to the game show stage of Celebrity Jeopardy.

Here's a behind the scenes look of what you can expect from the exhibit from The Chicago Tribune:

As you can see, there will be plenty of props, costumes, script pages and more in display from the archives of Saturday Night Live. It looks to be a must-see for anyone who calls themselves a fan of the show.

The Saturday Night Live exhibition opens on October 21st, 2017 and will be situated at the Museum of Broadcast Communications in Chicago for about 14 months. Tickets are $25 and can be purchased right here.

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