The forty-third season of the NBC sketch comedy series Saturday Night Live premiered on September 30, 2017, during the 2017–2018 television season with host Ryan Gosling and musical guest Jay-Z, and concluded on May 19, 2018, with host Tina Fey and musical guest Nicki Minaj.
With this announcement came the confirmation that the rest of the cast from the previous season would return, including guest star Alec Baldwin in his role as President Donald Trump.
bold denotes "Weekend Update" anchor Prior to the start of the season, the show added Steven Castillo, Andrew Dismukes, Claire Friedman, Sam Jay, Erik Marino, Nimesh Patel, and Gary Richardson to the writing staff.
[11] Weekend Update writer Katie Rich (who was previously suspended midway through last season for a controversial Tweet about Barron Trump) was brought back to the writing staff with the Weekend Update: Summer Edition episodes, and officially returned as a writer this season.
With the same episode, writers Fran Gillespie and Sudi Green (who had both joined the writing staff in 2015) were named as the co-writing supervisors alongside Seidell.