How a Saturday Night Live – Sam Heughan hosting gig could make sense

If you’ve been a longtime reader of CarterMatt, you certainly know that we’ve been very much on board the idea of Sam Heughan, Caitriona Balfe, or even both of them getting to host Saturday Night Live in the future. With their quick wit and fantastic sense of humor, it feels like they would be completely game for spoofing Outlander and having overall a very good time on the NBC sketch show.

Now, we’re actually starting to think that there could be a way to focus in the campaign for Sam to host at a specific time: The start of season 44 this fall. What would make this so perfect for Sam? Think a number of different things:

1. The release date for The Spy Who Dumped Me – Often, stars of big-time summer movies get an opportunity to host new episodes of Saturday Night Live early on in the season’s run. It recently happened with Gal Gadot following the success of Wonder Woman and we’ve certainly seen it in years past. Sam doesn’t necessarily have to host the first episode of the season (Gadot didn’t), but any point within the first two or three of the season could work. If this movie becomes a big hit, there is absolutely incentive for SNL to want to make this move happen.

2. Heughan’s work with Kate McKinnon on said movie – McKinnon is arguably the biggest star on SNL these days, and we certainly think that relationship helps his chances on some level. We absolutely have seen many hosts booked over the years who have solid working relationships with the cast. That chemistry just makes the show that much better!

3. The Outlander schedule – Provided that Outlander season 5 starts production in the fall, there may be a small-enough window for Sam to host prior to the start of filming new episodes. This could help to promote season 4 and also raise his profile for whatever comes next. One of the challenges that always comes with pitching Heughan or Balfe as SNL hosts is that their series basically shoots during the entirety of the comedy’s production window; the start of the SNL season is really the most-feasible time to have it happen. (We’re making an assumption here that Outlander will be renewed for season 5 and, beyond that, will also film within the same window as seasons 3 and 4.)

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