The TV Zone

Of all the yawning voids over the last three month, I can think of few greater, wider, more noticeable, more dramatic and - in its own particular way - more unsettling than the absence of "Saturday Night Live."

This isn't a critical comment, per se, but a comment on the show's symbolism - almost as great, if not greater, than "The Tonight Show," which - thanks to Jay Leno - got itself back on the map at the beginning of the year.

But "SNL?" MIA, or DOA.

I've been worried about "SNL," and don't ask me why. Maybe because this is one of the last great pillars of NBC, which has turned - sadly - into a pretty crumby network. This was once the network of Brandon Tartikoff and Grant Tinker and (in fact) Lorne Michaels. Not that Lorne is in the past tense, but in this New Awful Downsized and Crummified NBC, he feels terribly marginalized, and so does his classic.

Anyway, this is a long roundabout way of getting to the good news: "SNL" will be back on February 23. Seth Meyers was quoted somewhere over the weekend as saying that this Saturday is the return date, but - alas - poor under-worked Seth got a little ahead of himself. I'm told (reliably) that the 23rd is the big day.

I'm glad. I feel a little better. The glorious NBC past isn't completely dead and buried - yet.

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