Splitsider

It has been speculated for a week or so but it still feels nice to get an official word. As we reported, 30 Rock will be given an abbreviated final season. It's sad news for a show arguably still at the height of its powers but it’s a hell of a lot better than it just getting taken off without a finale. In a time rife with cancellation speculation (band name?), it’s nice for a show like 30 Rock to be able to write itself a proper ending; it's what Tina Fey always wanted. No word on Community and Parks & Recreation but things still look solid, [...]

When the episode “Special Project” ended, I was excited about the future of The Office for the first time all season. It felt like things were actually going to start happening, rather than the show's spending nearly half the season trying to convince us that new regional manager Andy Bernard needed to win over his co-workers. (He didn’t have to; they already liked him – I don’t want to think about the painful “Gettysburg” ever again.) To refresh your memory: in “Special Project,” which aired February 9, Andy tells Dwight that he needs to pick a team to go down to Tallahassee, Florida with him, to help launch [...]

Ed Helms swung by The Late Show last night to talk standup, and in particular one terrible standup show he did once upon a time in a place starting with a P. The happy ending is of course that Ed Helms is now hugely successful, while the headliner was punished for his "violation of the brotherhood" by a lifetime in obscurity. Even worse, the obnoxious audience member had to continue being a doctor and helping people. Don't heckle, kids, or you could end up with an MD.

Here's the trailer for Jeff, Who Lives at Home, written by the Duplass brothers and starring Jason Segel, Ed Helms and Judy Greer. Looks good! I'm gonna go with "sad in a funny way" but I reserve the right to change my mind if that Porsche scene ends with Judy Greer telling Ed Helms that he can "say goodbye to these!"

Showrunner Paul Lieberstein explained that Andy Bernard was the natural choice for The Office's new boss because like Michael Scott, he "put[s] people first and relationships first." The reasoning makes sense: Andy's neediness has already served the character well in the season premiere.

In other Office news, Maura Tierney from NewsRadio is going to play Robert California's wife in at least one episode this season. Maura Tierney is great and all, but I'm mostly just out-of-my-seat elated to learn anything else about James Spader's Robert California, who's already one of the most bizarre and original new characters of this TV season. For the next few weeks [...]

Ed Helms is part of a long line of banjo playing comedians. Of course, there was Steve Martin. And before him was Banjo Willy Chuckles, the Appalachian banjo playing clown/cattle doctor. Helms told The Hollywood Reporter at The L.A. Bluegrass Situation, the two-year old music festival he co-founded, that he is working on an official album with his band, the Lonesome Trio. The group met in college and has been together for 20 years – that's a lot of hootenannies (Did I say that right, hoo-tin-nan-nees?). They might sell the album direct to the people they might not, but either way, expect the sweet sounds of washboard thimblin' soon. [...]

If you're not the type to shy away from advance clips of awesome-looking movies, check out these three clips from the Duplass brothers' Jeff, Who Lives at Home, featuring Ed Helms, Judy Greer and Jason Segel. In just under three minutes, the footage manages to be semi-sad and very funny and a little bit scary. If you are the type to shy away from advance clips of awesome-looking movies, don't watch this, but consider taking more risks in your life. What if you died tomorrow without having seen Jason Segel ride shotgun in a tiny Porsche?

Here's the latest trailer for Matt Walsh's improvised UCB movie High Road, featuring Ed Helms, Rob Riggle, Horatio Sanz, Kyle Gass, Abby Elliott, Lizzy Caplan and Zach Woods. It looks quite a bit more put-together this time around, with a plot and everything:

Glenn “Fitz” Fitzgerald (James F. Pumphrey) is a young man whose loyalties are split among his band, his girlfriend Monica (Abby Elliott) and selling weed. After his band breaks up, Fitz finds himself dealing pot out of his garage and bonding with 16-year-old neighborhood kid Jimmy (Dylan O’Brien). As his former band mates (Zach Woods, Matt L. Jones, Lizzy Caplan) begin finding success and [...]

If you like smoothly sweeping melodies and creamy, velvety voices (and who doesn't?!), every year is A Michael Bublé Christmas. But this year NBC is pouring even more X-mas Bublé into all our glasses via a Dec. 6 holiday special. In addition to songs, it'll feature digital shorts starring the Bubes and Ed Helms and written by CollegeHumor's Dan Gurewitch and Ben Joseph. Drink in the sophistication of Michael Bublé's holiday sweater like thick, spiked eggnog straight from the punch bowl of comedy. Goes down smooth, doesn't it?

The Lonely Island Emmy medley of "Jack Sparrow," "I Just Had Sex" and "3-way" was a delight, wasn't it? This is the kind of moment all of these bloated awards shows desperately need; anyone can sit through hours upon hours of awards if you just give them a little bit of Bill Macy-freaking fun. Between the spasmodically gyrating wave-men, Maya Rudolph getting double-teamed by Ed Helms and John Stamos and the gigantic billowing American flags, their performance seems like the last push we need for society to finally, officially, recognize that it's not gay if it's in a three-way. U.S.A.! U.S.A.! U.S.A.!

Big shakeups are about to hit Dunder Mifflin. Paul Lieberstein will likely exit as showrunner next year, the better to focus on the Dwight-centric spinoff. Meanwhile, Mindy Kaling's absence to work on her new series seems inevitable after the casting of Ed Helms, Bill Hader, and Richard Schiff in the pilot. So in theory, next year could see the loss of: the showrunner, an influential writer, Dwight, Andy, Toby, and Kelly. That'd make for an empty Scranton office, all right. I know this show is good at adapting, but isn't it kind of time to close things out already?

“That’s the little bunny that keeps you running around the dog track, and it actually is an illusion. You always think that next horizon is where you’ll be comfortable and where everything will be set. It just never really is.” – That's Ed Helms, who's recently taken on roles in The Lorax and Jeff, Who Lives at Home, in this profile. His wisdom knows no bounds.

Holy butts. Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms and Zach Galifianakis are close to closing a deal to star in The Hangover 3, and they're asking for $15 million each. Fifteen million dollars each! That's more than double the amount each of them made from Hangovers 1 and 2 put together. (At least there probably won't be a Hangover 4, because 15 mil can surely buy all their characters private counseling for their alcohol dependencies.) The latest plot update is that the story may "involve Alan escaping from a mental hospital." And then killing everyone inside and his friends, right? The Hangover 3: Goodbye, Empty and Indifferent Universe.

The very smart Alan Sepinwall has made a strong case that The Office's loss of Steve Carell has left a void that looks un-fillable by Ed Helms' Andy or James Spaders' Robert California, and continues to pulse with a ferocious power that hungrily sucks everything around it into its terrifying dark vacuum. Fine, it's not quite that bad. Basically the central problem is that Andy Bernard is just like Michael Scott, but less so:

In some ways, he feels like what everyone feared the American version of The Office was going to be: a main character who's sort of inappropriate, but not really; who seems to annoy people, [...]