Michael Scott Won’t Return To ‘The Office,’ And 10 Other Things We Learned From TCA 2013

The Television Critics Association winter tour is a time for certain successful networks to boast, like NBC, which had a promising (for NBC standards, at least) fall season, so they feel comfortable saying things like, “We don’t have our heads up our asses [like our rivals],” and for other less effective networks to explain what the hell happened these past few months. It’s also when a sh*t ton of information is doled out, about renewals, the fate of favorite shows, and other various bits of tid, including NBC president Bob Greenblatt remarking that he doesn’t believe Steve Carrell will return to The Office for its one-hour season finale on May 9th.

Here are 10 other stories from TCA 2013 you should be aware of.

1. Let’s just get this out of the way now: in regards to Community‘s change in showrunners, Greenblatt said, “I think you’ll see relatively the same show that you did before, maybe with a little bit more heart built into it. But we didn’t fundamentally change it.” (Oh good, more end-of-episode earnest Jeff speeches?) As for what’s to come after season four’s 13-episode run: “We’re absolutely hopeful it will lead to a fifth season.”

2. Cougar Town premieres on TBS on January 8th, and fans of the show and nudity alike have “Naked Day” to look forward to. “In one episode,” said Courtney Cox, “Jules and her husband Grayson have ‘Naked Day’…It’s a way to keep their marriage fresh.” It’s always been my dream to live life like David Arquette, circa 2002.

3. Workaholics will return to Comedy Central for 26 episodes spread over seasons four and five, while the network also picked up the Will Ferrell-produced Drunk History, based on the online series where famous people get wasted and reenactment famous moments throughout history, for eight episodes.

4. Killing. Lincoln. Killing Lincoln. Lincoln, Killing. It’s Nat Geo’s first “docudrama,” based on Bill O’Reilly’s hit book, and you probably already know what it’s about: killing Andrew Lincoln, because Nat Geo wants some of those sweet, sweet Walking Dead ratings. Actually, it’s the sh*tty follow-up of sorts to Lincoln, except instead of Daniel Day-Lewis, the film, which takes place in the days before and after our 16th president was assassinated by John Wilkes Booth (Jesse Jackson), stars Billy Campbell (with narration from Tom Hanks), best known for his role on Once and Again. Also, we’ll actually SEE Lincoln get shot, so…there’s that.

5. HBO news: Life’s Too Short has basically been canceled, with the exception of a one-off special, which is one episode too many; the Tony-winning Larry Kramer play, The Normal Heart, will be turned into an original movie, starring Julia Roberts and Mark Ruffalo; Phil Spector, with Al Pacino and his Giant Hair, has been scheduled to finally air during the spring; and here’s an amazing photo of Matt Damon as Liberace’s lover, Scott Thorson.

6. Check out the trailer for artist/inventor-turned-superhero drama series Da Vinci’s Demons on Starz (from Batman Begins and Blade writer David S. Goyer), if you’ve got a Mona Lisa fetish. It premieres April 12th.

7. A&E’s Bates Motel — executive produced by Lost‘s Carlton Cuse and starring Freddie Highmore (Charlie and the Chocolate Factory) as teenage Norman Bates and Vera Farmiga (The Departed) as his mother — is a prequel to Psycho, without any of the supernatural elements that Cuse is known for. As for how closely it will hew to the original: “The show was inspired by [the film], but that’s as far as they’re creatively bound.”

8. Speaking of Lost, everyone’s favorite actor who played a fictional heroin addict rock star, Dominic Monaghan, has a show of his own on BBC America called Wild Things with Dominic Monaghan, in which he travels the world looking for dangerous animals, while also getting into threesomes with Matt Dillon and Neve Campbell. Also on BBC U-S-A U-S-A: Broadchurch, an eight-part drama about “the murder of a young boy in a small coastal town” starring David Tennant as a detective who presumably plays by no one’s rules but his own.

9. NBC has ordered 13 episodes of Camp, a one-hour drama in “the tradition of Meatballs” in which “parents decompress with gin while teenagers make gleeful mischief and fall in and out of love.” It will premiere during summer and NOT star Anna Kendrick, unfortunately.

10. And lastly, in fellow NBC news: no one knows when we’ll see Hannibal, but the best guess right now is during the summer; Parenthood may receive a surprise fifth season pick-up; the fate of Parks and Recreation will likely depend on the success of 1600 Penn and the network’s other new comedies; and Greenblatt called Smash an “unqualified success,” proving just show clueless network executives are. Better days, Greenblatt…

…better days.

(Via EW) (Via Deadline) (Via HitFix)