Lorne Michaels ends season 49 of “SNL” with a ratings high: Dua Lipa was huge

Lorne Michaels is set to end season 49 of “Saturday Night Live” with a strong ratings record.

Last weekend’s show, with Dua Lipa as host and musical guest, drew 4.74 million viewers. That was a lot higher than the previous performance with Ryan Gosling and Chris Stapleton.

Both shows were vast improvements from the terrible outing with Ramy Youssef a few weeks ago. This episode will bring down the season averages with an anemic 3.99.

Michaels is on a roll booking great hosts, performers and cameos. It’s a real comeback after the pandemic. Of course he will enter year 50 at the peak of his powers. No one has lasted as long as Lorne Michaels in TV history. It is an extraordinary story. Not only has he kept the show going for five years, but the list of stars he has created is staggering. Plus, he leads NBC’s All Night with Jimmy Fallon and Seth Meyers.

The next two “SNL” episodes will be hosted by Maya Rudolph and Jake Gyllenhaal, respectively. Their musical guests are Vampire Weekend and Sabrina Carpenter. You know both shows will be chock full of surprise cameos, the first since Rudolph is a beloved alum (Tina, Amy?).

And then we head towards autumn. Sarah Sherman and Marcello Hernandez are big breakout stars this season, that’s for sure. So we’ll see who makes it to 50th. It will be a great year. And then? Is Lorne retiring? Not so fast, I think. He still has a lot of game left in him.