1) “Saturday Night Live,” 11:29 p.m., NBC. After a stretch of reruns, “SNL” is ending the season three straight new episodes. That starts tonight, with Elon Musk as host and Miley Cyrus (shown here) as music guest. Musk is the first non-entertainer to host the show since football star J.J. Watt, 15 months ago; see separate story.
2) “Attenborough’s Journey,” 8 p.m., BBC America. David Attenborough turns 95 today and BBC America celebrates with great nature films all day, peaking with this profile. When Attenborough started working in television, he’d only seen one TV show. He launched “Zoo Quest” in 1954, then kept changing. Once a network executive, he quit to focus on nature films. After “retiring” at 82, he started a new surge; he’s now won TV awards for shows in black-and-white, color, 3-D, HD and 4K.
3) “Vax Live: The Concert to Reunite the World,” 8 p.m. Saturday, ABC and CBS, 11 p.m., Fox; also streams at 8 p.m. ET on YouTube, ABC News Live and iHeartMedia radio. Here’s a mega-event with two goals: Encourage COVID vaccinations … and boost the spread of vaccines to poorer nations. There’s music by Eddie Vedder, Jennifer Lopez, Foo Fighters, J Balvin and H.E.R. Selena Gomez hosts, with comments by David Letterman, Jimmy Kimmel and presidents of France, Canada, Croatia and the U.S.
4) Mike Nichols films, 11:45 a.m. and 1 p.m. ET, Turner Classic Movies. From opposite ends of the spectrum, here’s a genius. First is comedy – radio sketches with Elaine May, illustrated with animation. Then dark drama – Nichols directing Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor in “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” (1966). That’s followed by more drama power, with Marlon Brando’s “On the Waterfront” (1954) at 3:30 p.m. ET; then the Classic Film Festival returns to fun with “Bullitt” (1968) at 5:45 p.m.
5) And more: At 7 p.m. ET, Ovation launches the second season of “Riviera,” which combines a soap-opera-style plot (lots of death and deceit) with settings and visuals that would even impress James Bond. And from 5-11 p.m., Disney Channel reruns the complete first season of “High School Musical: The Musical: The Series,” a scripted show built around a school show. It follows at 11 with a peek at the second season, which arrives May 14 on Disney+, with the teens tackling “Beauty and the Beast.”