Renewal season is right around the corner. By the end of April through the first of May, final decisions will be made on the fate of most network televisions shows. It’s a nervous, jittery time, but it really shouldn’t be. Not anymore. For all the hand-wringing we do about cancelation fears, the reality is: Good shows that have been around for at least a season are rarely canceled anymore. Networks are no longer in the driver’s seat. New shows are increasingly difficult to launch. How many new big hits were there in the 2011-2012 season? Zero. How many moderately-sized hits were there? Four: “New Girl,” “Once Upon a Time,” “Revenge” and — so far — “Don’t Trust the B—- in Apt. 23.” With the increased competition from cable, it’s harder and harder to land a new show, so the networks tend to stick with what they know, even if it’s low-rated. This explains five seasons of “Chuck” and four seasons of “Fringe,” and the yearly renewal of “Community” and “Parks and Rec” despite anemic ratings. You know they’re doing gangbusters on the back-end with those shows on DVD and online licensing, though. They just have to be.

Ultimately, I wouldn’t worry too much about losing a favorite show, except for one:

ABC

On ABC, the only major bummer is the likely cancelation of “Cougar Town.” In an ideal world, it could be paired with “Happy Endings” and “Apt. 23″ in perhaps the best comedy block on network television. That’s still a possibility, and Tuesday nights would be ideal, though it woud leave the higher-rated “Last Man Standing” without a suitable pairing. More likely, only two of the three will be renewed, and “Apt. 23″ and “Happy Endings” have the better ratings. The one leg “Cougar Town” has up on the other two is two more seasons, which makes it closer to syndication money. The strike against it, however, is that Bill Lawrence is off working on a new show for another network.

Meanwhile, it’s not official yet, but “Modern Family,” “Suburgatory,” and “The Middle” will all be renewed as well, and “The Middle” may be better paired with “Last Man Standing” next season. If anyone is interested, “The Missing” will probably be canceled, however.

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Inspired by a character in “Smash,” presumably, EW has curated a slide show presenting the 20 Most Annoying TV Characters Ever. In addition to the numerous omissions, it’s the “ever” that I have the biggest problem with. What? 100 years of television and the most annoying character they can come up with is Lutz from “30 Rock”? What about Barney’s dopey girlfriend in “The Andy Griffith Show” or Chrissy’s cousin in “Three’s Company” or, hell, WHERE IS KATE FROM “LOST”?

If you leave off the “ever,” then people understand that you’re really only talking about contemporary TV shows because contemporary TV shows are all that anyone really cares about. But, the “ever” suggests that the writer of the post has never seen a television show that aired before 1999 (except “Welcome Back Kotter.”)

It’s also an annoying list for all that was left out. I thought I’d pass along the annoyance. You can view the entire slideshow over on EW if you want images, but here is a list of those characters.

20. Ellis Boyd, “Smash”
19. Kim Bauer, “24″
18. Nikki and Paulo, “Lost”
17. Janice Litman, “Friends”
16. Sam McKinney, “Diff’rent Strokes”
15. Oliver Trask, “The O.C.”
14. Kimmy Gibbler, “Full House”
13. Arnold Horshack, “Welcome Back Kotter”
12. Lutz, “30 Rock”
11. Will Schuester, “Glee”

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Former “SNL” cast member Rachel Dratch has a memoir out, Girl Walks Into a Bar …, which means she’s doing the publicity circuit, which means there’s been a lot of talk about why her career stalled after she was booted from “30 Rock” in favor of Jane Krakowski. Dratch offers her own assessement:

I am offered solely the parts that I like to refer to as The Unf—ables. In reality, if you saw me walking down the street, you wouldn’t point at me and recoil and throw up and hide behind a shrub. But by Hollywood standards, I’m a troll, ogre, woodland creature, or manly lesbian. … Trolls, ogres, and woodland creatures can be done with CGI, so that leaves yours truly to play the bull dykes.

Jezebel, naturally, is outraged, arguing that there’s a double standard in Hollywood with regard to ugly people.
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I can never think of anything to write for these GIF intros (other than: here are GIFs from “30 Rock,” “Modern Family,” “Justified,” “Game of Thrones,” etc.), so you should use the comments section as a free-for-all. Wanna talk about Joss Whedon? Sure! (I’m calling it now: Burnsy is wrong.) That amazing Megadeth/Motörhead post? Obviously. Jeff’s dumb speech at the end of an otherwise excellent episode of “Community”? Certainly.

But we all know what we’re REALLY going to talk about: that Three Stooges trailer, where Sean Hayes and Professor Gigglepepper flick a piece of food toward a dolphin, and it lands in the dolphin’s blowhole. That’s classic mirth-making, is what that is. I wish I had a GIF of it. Speaking of…to the GIFs!

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It was announced a little while back that “30 Rock” would be doing another live episode. You may remember the first time they did this, back in 2010. Anyway, I was kind of unimpressed with it all. I admit the concept is very cool, but it’s the kind of stunt show that typically turns me off. But then they went ahead and announced that “Community” star Donald Glover would be portraying a young Tracy Jordan in the episode, and now I am officially intrigued.

“Donald does an excellent Tracy Morgan-slash-Jordan impression,” 30 Rock Executive Producer Robert Carlock tells TVLine.com, who broke the news.

With the casting, Glover will be pulling off a homecoming. He wrote for “30 Rock” for three years before joining “Community.” In fact, this also won’t be the first time he has stood in for Morgan. Apparently, he did the vocals on an extended version of the season one jingle, “Werewolf Bar Mitzvah.” [Hollywood Reporter]

Our colleagues over at the UPROXX mothership have discussed how infuriatingly good at things Donald Glover is, so it should come as no surprise that he also does spot-on impressions. I don’t know how they are going to work him into the show, but I sincerely hope it involves Young Tracy and present-day Tracy meeting somehow, and having an insane conversation about pretty much anything. I could probably watch the two of them yell non-sequiturs at each other about rabbits and hamburgers and government conspiracies and what not for an hour. In fact, there you go, “30 Rock.” That’s your episode. You’re very welcome.