Though last night’s Super Bowl will be the most-watched television program all year, this week is also host to another major event: the return of Community.  The series’ fourth season has been subject to some downright cruel delays at the behest of NBC, but the show finally returns this coming Thursday and a new “epic” 2-minute trailer has been released online to mark the occasion.  It basically looks like all of the season’s big event episodes (ie. the ones with costumes, movie/TV references, etc.) have been cut together for a sizzle reel, and I’ll admit I’m not fully convinced that the new showrunners will be able to execute said episodes with the same wit and originality that Dan Harmon did. Nevertheless, I downright love this cast so I’m sincerely hoping for the best.

Hit the jump to watch the new trailer.  Community season four will (finally) begin on Thursday, February 7th at 8/7c on NBC.  

As we finally approach the 2012 2013 debut of NBC’s Community, a couple of new TV spots have been made available that tease some scenes from the season four premiere.  You may have already seen the Dean’s version of The Hunger Games, but these two short sequences show off smaller slices of comedy, like Britta (Gillian Jacobs) “therapizing” Abed (Danny Pudi) or Shirley (Yvette Nicole Brown) and Annie (Alison Brie) pranking Jeff (Joel McHale).  Although Pierce (Chevy Chase) won’t be returning for all the fun this season, you can hang with the gang when they return to NBC starting Friday, October 19th Thursday, February 7th at 8/7c.  Hit the jump to check out the new TV spots.

Danny Pudi, Jim Rash, and Joel McHale introduce the first extended clip from season 4 of Community, and you laugh, because it is three funny men who have learned how to play off each other well over the last few years.  Then they get to the clip, a Hunger Games spoof that thanks to an unfortunate midseason premiere is probably several months past timely.  A scheduling mishap led to overbooking the popular class History of Ice Cream, so the dean leads the students to the extravagant “Hunger Deans” to fight it out for a spot in the class.

It feels sterile (“Hunger Deans” is not funny, right?), but I can’t deny my prejudice about anything new in a post-Dan Harmon Community.  I will try to keep an open mind when Community returns on February 7, because I really am dying to see if one of my favorite shows can still be great, or if the creator’s departure will bury it.  Watch the clip after the break.

The Paley Center for Media has released the list of this year’s attendees and honorees for the the 30th annual PaleyFest.  The TV fan festival will take place at the Saban Theater at the beginning of March, and will feature newcomer The Walking Dead, which will be part of the opening night presentation.  That series will join a lineup that includes Community, Parenthood, The Mindy Project, Arrow, The Big Bang Theory, Revolution, Once Upon a Time and more.  American Horror Story: Asylum will close the festival on March 15th.

Ryan Murphy, creator of American Horror Story, Glee and Nip/Tuck will also be honored with the first PaleyFest Icon Award for creative achievement in television.  For the complete schedule and lineup for their biggest festival yet, hit the jump.  

We’ve got a couple of TV-related casting stories to share this morning.  First up, Sean Bean has signed on to replace Brendan Fraser as the lead in TNT’s espionage pilot Legends.  The series is based on a novel by Robert Littell and follows a former CIA operative now acting as a private detective who has the unique ability to turn himself into a different person for each assignment.  Fraser exited the project after he and showrunner Howard Gordon didn’t see eye to eye on how to approach the lead character, and now Variety reports that Bean is stepping into the lead role.

Bean’s characters have a tendency to, well, die unexpectedly, but I think he’s safe here as he’ll be toplining the series (at least I hope…).  Legends is one of a number of new projects 24 veteran Gordon is spearheading following the immense success of his Showtime series Homeland.  Hit the jump for casting news regarding a Seinfeld alum visiting Community.

It doesn’t look like Pierce Hawthorne will be graduating from Glendale Community College.  According to Deadline, Chevy Chase has left NBC’s Community.  The bulk of the 13-episode fourth season has been filmed, but he won’t appear in the 1 to 2 episodes that have yet to be shot.  Chase’s departure isn’t much of a surprise especially since he has the reputation for being kind of a dick.  He didn’t get along with Community creator Dan Harmon (who was replaced as showrunner at the end of season three, although likely not because of Chase’s input), and when Chase was asked by the Huffington Post UK on why he did the show, he replied “It was a big mistake! I just sort of hung around because I have three daughters and a wife, and I figured out I might as well make some bread, every week, so I can take care of them in the way they want … The hours are hideous, and it’s still a sitcom on television, which is probably the lowest form of television.”  Chase was also reportedly unhappy with the direction his character was going, and his recent outbursts had become a distraction for the cast and crew.

I, for one, commend Chase on his bold decision to leave the best thing he’s done in decades and return to obscurity.

We’ve got a ton of stuff to get through in Limited Paper today, including a look at Mondo’s next big gallery show (featuring artwork from Australian duo We Buy Your Kids), FroDesignCo’s series of Mythic Beasts Travel Posters (featuring Limited Paper’s spirit animal, the Chupacabra), Gallery1988’s Rated G (featuring work from Justin White), and—because why the hell not—we also need to provide an update on our latest contest/giveaway while teasing the next one.  Phew.  Bring a bookmark and meet me on the other side of the jump, my fellow poster junkies.

At long last, Community has a premiere date.  The Dan Harmon-less fourth season of the whip smart comedy series was initially set to premiere this month on Fridays, then NBC announced that they were holding the show for an unspecified premiere date sometime in the future.  Many assumed that the network was saving the series as a replacement in the event that one of their new comedy shows got cancelled, but when Animal Practice was given the axe NBC gave the timeslot to Whitney instead.

The cast put together a sort of fan-appreciation video in the wake of the delay news, and now finally some good news has surfaced as star Yvette Nicole Brown announced on Twitter that the fourth season will premiere on Thursday, February 7th at 8pm.  Hit the jump for more. [Update: NBC has confirmed the date with the release of their full midseason schedule, which is included after the jump and announces a break for Revolution, a move for Smash, and more.]

Community fans have become experts in the virtue of patience.  We’ve been jerked around so many times regarding when/where/if one of the smartest and funniest shows on TV will actually be on TV that we’re no longer shocked when NBC asks us to “trust them” and wait “a little bit longer” to see new episodes.  The upcoming Dan Harmon-less fourth season of Community was initially slated to begin on October 19th (ie. today), but NBC recently reneged on that decision in favor of holding Community and Whitney as replacements for when their new comedy series go belly-up.  Animal Practice was cancelled yesterday, but NBC naturally decided to replace it with Whitney instead of Community.

The wonderful ensemble cast knows how much the show means to their fans, so they’ve put together a great little video in which Troy and Abed try to explain why the show’s fourth season doesn’t have a premiere date.  The clip is filled with in-jokes and fan appreciation galore.  Seriously, this cast is the best.  Hit the jump to take a look.  Season four of Community premieres someday. [Update: We've updated the article with a clip from the season premiere.]

NBC has put down freshman comedy series Animal Practice, which will continue to air in its 8 pm slot on Wednesday nights until November 7th.  Starting November 14th, NBC, in the network’s infinite wisdom, has decided to start airing new episodes of Whitney.  There is no word yet on when fan-favorite and critical darling Community will return from limbo for its fourth season.  From the way NBC has handled their comedic properties, one would assume that Crystal the Monkey was in charge.  Clearly that’s not the case as Crystal would never cancel her own shows.  Hit the jump to get this sorted out. 

NBC continues to kick Community to the curb.  The studio announced today that it would be bumping the season four return of the fan-favorite show from their expected Friday, October 19th date to an unspecified future date.  Sophomore comedy series, Whitney, will also be moving to Fridays, but that show’s debut date is up in the air as well.  NBC cited the need for more time to make a marketing push in the case of each series.

I can’t imagine that Community needs to be marketed any more, with the off-season fireworks of creator/showrunner Dan Harmon being let go; the fourth season will be run by Moses Port and David Guarascio.  I also can’t imagine a scenario in which marketing will get me to watch Whitney.  In the meantime, NBC will air re-runs of the first season of Grimm from 8-9pm on Fridays, which will lead into new episodes of the supernatural procedural.  Hit the jump to see who will be returning to Community if and when it returns.

A couple of TV casting stories of interest have surfaced today.  First up, 21 Jump Street star Brie Larson has been tapped for a guest stint on the upcoming fourth season of Community.  Larson joins an impressive list of actors set to appear in the new season, including James Brolin, Malcolm McDowell, and Matt Lucas (Bridesmaids).  TV Line reported the news of Larson’s involvement, but her role is being kept under wraps for now.  She’ll pop up during the show’s seventh episode, in which Dean Pelton plans a “Sadie Hawkins” dance at Greendale.  Naturally, Britta (Gillian Jacobs) plans her own “Sophie B. Hawkins” dance in protest and completely misses the point.

Hit the jump for a casting coup for the promising new FX serial killer drama pilot The Bridge.  The fourth season of Community returns on October 19th at 8:30/7:30c.  For more on what to expect in the new season, check out our interview with Danny Pudi.

Earlier this year, we got the chance to talk with Community’s Danny Pudi in conjunction with Speed Stick’s “Handle It” campaign.  Fans were asked to tweet their most embarrassing stories, and the winning selection was turned into a video narrated by Pudi.  The contest has now come to a close, and Pudi spoke with us again about how they settled on this particular embarrassing story as the winner and the many awkward submissions that were turned in.

Additionally, with the fourth season of Community set to kick off next month, we spoke quite a bit about the new batch of episodes.  Pudi teased an Inspector Spacetime convention episode, a ghost-filled Halloween episode, the appearance of Jeff Winger’s (Joel McHale) dad, played by Josh Brolin, and gave his thoughts on the Inspector Spacetime web series.  I also asked Pudi about the show’s regime change, as David Guarascio and Moses Port replaced Dan Harmon as showrunner, and he divulged his personal favorite episodes of the series thus far.  Hit the jump to check out the interview.

NBC’s Community will feature a holiday family reunion of sorts when Jeff Winger (Joel McHale) comes face to face with his father during the show’s upcoming Thanksgiving episode.  In the episode titled “Cooperative Escapism in Familial Relations,” fans will finally be introduced to William Winger, the estranged father whom Jeff hasn’t seen since he was a child.  Playing the elder Winger is none other than James Brolin (Marcus Welby, M.D.).  Community season four premieres at 8:30 p.m. on Friday, Oct. 19.  Hit the jump for more on season four and a set photo of McHale and Brolin.

Fans of NBC’s Community await the upcoming fourth season with mixed emotions, as we’ll be seeing a version of the show not spearheaded by showrunner/creative wizard Dan Harmon.  As you probably know by now, Harmon was not-so-quietly ousted from his showrunner position by Sony and NBC and replaced by new producers that have no history with the oddball series.

In the wake of his exit, Harmon has signed blind deals to create new half-hour comedies at both Fox and CBS and he’s also developing a stop-motion animated feature from the mind of Charlie Kaufman called Anomalisa.  Harmon recently took part in a Reddit AMA (“ask me anything”), and he candidly discussed circumstances surrounding his exit from Community, his plans for season four, why he wrote the season three finale as a semi-series finale, difficulties with Chevy Chase, the status of his project with Charlie Kaufman, and more.  Hit the jump to read on.