‘Saturday Night Live’: Tom Hanks to host, Lady Gaga to perform October 22

How about this for a “Saturday Night Live” surprise? It’s not often that the new season begins with four new episodes in a row, but that is precisely what we are getting as we move into season 42.

Today, NBC confirmed that Tom Hanks is going to host the upcoming Saturday, October 22 episode alongside musical guest Lady Gaga. Neither is much of a stranger to the show or the studio, having each been on the show multiple times. Gaga will be there in part to promote her new album, while Hanks is probably still going to be riding the high of his recent motion-picture release “Sully.”

The network also confirmed that “The Girl on the Train” star Emily Blunt will host the October 15 episode as previously reported, and she will be joined by none other than Bruno Mars. It’s somewhat-curious that the show isn’t just getting a separate show for Bruno to host somewhere, mostly because we know that he’s capable of it and one of the best episodes of the series we’ve seen over the past few years is his own solo hosting effort. For Blunt, this will be her first time stepping into the position.

This weekend, you’ve got on tap Lin-Manuel Miranda and musical guest Twenty One Pilots, which will hopefully make for an energetic show. If nothing else, we do absolutely know that there are probably many “Hamilton” fans among the cast, and they’ll want to do their best for Lin-Manuel. Also, he has plenty of experience in this live format and should be able to deliver without a problem.

If you want to preview this weekend’s episode (courtesy of a hilarious promo), you can do that over at the link here! Meanwhile, sign up over here to score some additional TV news on everything we cover at CarterMatt via our official newsletter. (Photo: NBC.)