‘Saturday Night Live’ ratings: Daniel Craig’s show falls hard

Is “Saturday Night Live” really starting to lose some of its luster now without Andy Samberg, Kristen Wiig, and Abby Elliot? Based on some of the ratings that we have just seen for this past weekend’s episode, it does look as though the magic is waning.

With a 2.2 rating in the 18-49 demographic, Daniel Craig’s hosting gig was easily the lowest-rated of the season, and also one of the lowest-rated episodes we have seen in some time. So what happened here? Really, we can attribute it to everything from college football to “Taken 2” or possibly just college students spending their time partying instead. At the end of the day, we really just think that the problem is quality. The Digital Shorts are good, we haven’t seen that many recurring characters, and save for Big Bird on “Weekend Update,” there has not really been a moment as of late that has caused people to go to the office and start talking about the show with their friends.

Do we think that the bleeding will stop this coming weekend? Honestly, no. Christina Applegate is a fine comedic actress, but “Up All Night” is a ratings disaster, and before that she had another low-rated show in “Samantha Who?” that suggests that there really will not be that much of an audience that tunes in here … even if the show itself is pretty funny. Really, it may take the edition starring Bruno Mars coming up a little later this month to really turn things around. The only other option is bringing back someone like Justin Timberlake, and hoping you can draw more people back in that way.

Why do you think that “SNL” fell so hard in the ratings this past weekend, and do you see this as more than just a passing thing?