‘Saturday Night Live’ ratings rise for John Cena – Maren Morris episode

Even though this past episode of “Saturday Night Live” did not have a return from Alec Baldwin as Donald Trump, it did provide us with something that remains a tradition of most of the entire season to date: Consistently strong ratings.

The numbers for this show, which was hosted by John Cena and with a performance by country star Maren Morris, in total were a 2.3 rating in the 18-49 demographic. This was the best rating for the show since back in November when Dave Chappelle took the stage and generated some really huge numbers to go along with it. We figured that Cena’s popularity would lead to some WWE fans wanting to check it out, while the “My Church” singer also probably has a popularity with viewers outside of the key “SNL” demographic.

As for whether or not we see a substantial rise for the winter finale next week, that’s hard to say, though we will say that we continue to find Casey Affleck an interesting choice for the final show of the year. He’s not a name on the level of Ben Affleck, and we tend to find that the alumni hosts make for the better choice right before the holidays officially are here. Still, let’s see what happens with the show when it airs — given that Casey has never been on the show before, he could go down as a revelation and one of the bests hosts that we’ve seen in a rather long time.

Even if next week does turn out to be a disappointment in some way, we will still argue that this is the best first half of an “SNL” season in years. Several episodes, from the return of Tom Hanks to the Chappelle episode to even the premiere with Margot Robbie, proved themselves to be very entertaining, and the Trump impression in particular has brought the show such a heightened level of popularity than it’s ever had before.

If you want to get some other news when it comes to “SNL” this weekend, be sure to head over here to read our review for Cena’s show! (Photo: NBC.)