1) “Saturday Night Live,” 11:29 p.m., NBC. May 6 was going to be big for “SNL” — Pete Davidson’s first time as host, starting a three-week string of new shows. Then came the writers’ strike. Now, 23 weeks later, the show is finally back, with Davidson (shown here) as host and Ice Spice as music guest. All of the regulars are expected, with Chloe Troast as the lone newcomer. This comes two days before the “Daily Show” opener on Comedy Central; we need the laughs.
2) “Murdaugh Murders,” 8-10 p.m., Lifetime; concludes Sunday. There have been plenty of news and documentary reports bout this case, so what can a scripted version add? Mostly, a perfectly calibrated performance by Bill Pullman. Tonight, he gives us Alex Murdaugh as a small-town, get-along lawyer. He’s used to talking his way out of things, but now life – his pill addiction, his son’s drinking – is caving in; in Sunday’s finale, he turns desperate.
3) “Shakespeare & Hathaway,” 7 p.m., Ovation. This show has always been strong on light fun and weak on its actual mysteries. Tonight, the fun is quite goofy, as the duo prepares for a possible award. The mystery involves the death of a free-spending beauty queen whose husband is bured in debt. It ends up with a variation of the gimmick from the show’s first episode. That’s followed by an 8 p.m. episode involving an American detective.
4) “NCIS: Hawaii,” 9 p.m., CBS. Tenant is questioning a prisoner during a transfer flight, when the helicopter crashes. Now she needs all her skills to save people. That follows an 8 p.m. rerun of “Raid the Cage,” a fast-paced game show that’s sort of fun – but not as much fun as the hyped-up hosts and contestants seem to indicate.
5) College football, all day. Things peak with three primetime games pitting ranked teams. At 7:30 p.m., NBC has Southern California (No. 10) at Notre Dame (No. 21) and ABC has Miami (No. 25) at North Carolina (No. 12). At 8, ABC has UCLA (No. 18) at Oregon State (No. 15). And at 6 and 9 p.m., TBS has the final baseball games (if needed) in the second round of the National League playoffs.