‘Saturday Night Live’ ratings: Reese Witherspoon, Florence + the Machine post solid numbers

While Reese Witherspoon may be a commercial disappointment at the box office this weekend for her new movie “Hot Pursuit,” she can at least attest to getting some pretty solid turnout for her episode of “Saturday Night Live” this weekend. As a matter of fact, with her 2.0 rating in the 18-49 demographic, this is a tie for the show’s best rating for a regular episode since the end of January.

So were the majority of the extra viewers there for Reese? Both yes and no. There was probably a general consensus that the show would rise versus the Scarlett Johansson show, given that it was up last week against the Manny Pacquiao – Floyd Mayweather fight in which people shelled out around a hundred bucks to watch something go for ultimately a pretty tiny period of time. The presence of a movie star like Witherspoon probably helped to a certain degree, and musical guest Florence + the Machine are a pretty popular band.

Next week, though, the show has to hope for some of its biggest ratings that it has had in a while when Louis CK comes back for the finale. We are still somewhat surprised at the choice, even though we love the comedian and “Louie” happens to be among our favorite shows. It feels almost like “SNL” is going for critical acclaim here more than commercial success, given that CK is probably not going to garner the attention of someone like a Kristen Wiig or an Amy Poehler would. Maybe he feels a little like an alumni because of his past work on the show, even though he was never an actual cast member.

Let’s just hope the finale is better than Witherspoon’s show, which was ultimately a dud for the majority of the 90 minutes.

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