‘Saturday Night Live’ finale ratings disappoint despite Fred Armisen hosting, multiple cameos

Clearly, “Saturday Night Live” learned last night that bringing back Fred Armisen to host your season finale is not a ratings draw. As a matter of fact, his show pulled some of the lowest numbers of the entire season.

Surprisingly, last night’s show (which also featured musical guest Courtney Barnett) drew a disappointing 1.7 rating in the 18-49 demographic. We did not exact this show to be a smash hit by any means, but we definitely expected it to fare better than the Brie Larson, Drake, or Russell Crowe outings as of late. This was supposed to appeal to the “SNL” faithful who remember some of the good-ol’ days. (Of course, the “good-ol’ days” to many fans equals whenever they started watching. Nothing is ever as good as that era!)

So what happened? Did none of these people tune in? We feel like the show was in part hurt by Armisen being a little more of a cult favorite who doesn’t have the rabid following of a Kristen Wiig or Bill Hader; meanwhile, West Coast audiences may not have been as excited once they heard from friends that neither of the two we just mentioned turned up. We were especially shocked that there was no “Ghostbusters” sketch given that this movie is coming out this summer and every star in it has some sort of connection to this show. There were cameos, but they were from cast members such as Maya Rudolph and Jason Sudeikis.

Ultimately, it seems like if “SNL” wants to get huge ratings for a finale these days they need to either have a music icon on board the show like a Sir Paul McCartney, or someone hosting like a Wiig or a Justin Timberlake. Maybe Jimmy Fallon could do the trick, but that’s not logistically easy when he has another show to host.

You can read the review and watch videos from last night’s show just by heading over here right now. Also, sign up over here to secure some other TV news on all we cover, sent right over to you via our CarterMatt Newsletter. (Photo: NBC.)