This news is streets ahead, indeed: according to Deadline, “Community” has been renewed for a 13-episode season four! We’ll fill in the details as they come in, but that’s all that matters for now. Until then: let’s dance.

UPDATE: Alan Sepinwall has this to say:

Unlike the “30 Rock” final season renewal, as far as I know this is not officially the final order for the show. It’s entirely possible “Community” could get a back 9 order next season or even, miracle of miracles, a fifth season. Unlike the aging, expensive “30 Rock,” it makes no sense for NBC to cut off its options with “Community” before it has to. While I’d say it’s probable that these 13 will be it for Jeff, Britta, Troy, Abed, Annie, Shirley, Pierce and company — and would allow the show to roughly mirror the four-year college experience — stranger things have happened at NBC in recent years (like five seasons of “Chuck”). Six seasons and a movie is still vaguely in play. (Via)

I’m just happy that next Thursday isn’t the end of one of my favorite shows.

Note: in the past hour or so, news has been spreading like Lannister wild fire that “Parks and Recreation” and “Community” will get abbreviated seasons, then be canceled. It’s not true. It’s based on an unofficial report that we wrote about earlier this week, and shouldn’t be believed. That being said:

Parks and Recreation (NBC, 9:30 p.m.) – Season finale. CAN’T NBC JUST TELL US IF “PARKS” AND “COMMUNITY” ARE COMING BACK NEXT SEASON, OR AT LEAST FOR HOW LONG? I’m not emotionally prepared to say goodbye to either (a.k.a. need more booze and waffles). Anyway, tonight’s episode has the Parks gang pondering their futures while awaiting the Leslie v. Bobby election results. Meta.

Community (NBC, 8 p.m.) – Abed sees a therapist (John Hodgman) because he’s not convinced that the Fake Dean is the Real Dean. Which he’s not, because he’s the Fake Dean.

Beastie Boys: Solid Gold Hits (Fuse, 8:30 p.m.) – A tribute to MCA, featuring clips from the best Beastie Boys’ music videos. This special could be nine hours long and I’d happily watch every minute.

30 Rock (NBC, 8:30 p.m.) – Season finale. Avery (Elizabeth Banks) returns from North Korea in a story you never really cared about, because who pays attention to “30 Rock” season-long arcs? Besides that guy who’s writing the Unauthorized Oral History of Lutz. He does. [UPDATE: Just renewed for a seventh and final season. More tomorrow]

The Office (NBC, 9 p.m.) – Season finale. Andy goes undercover as a janitor to stage a coup and a “stolen diaper leads to a high-speed car chase,” according to the episode synopsis. STOLEN. DIAPER. I wish this was the show’s final episode: a story about poop seems a particulary apt metaphor.

LATE NIGHT GUESTS: Elizabeth Banks on Letterman; Howie Mandel on Leno; Dr. Phil on Kimmel; Christiane Amanpour and Anna Kendrick on Ferguson; Will Ferrell and Ellie Kemper on Fallon; Tom Selleck and Zosia Mamet on Conan; Robert Caro on Stewart; and Francis Collins on Colbert

Jim Rash is not only an Oscar winning screenwriter, he’s the biggest scene-stealer in “Community,” notable mostly for his weekly grand entrances. The video below includes all of them, plus all the rest of the best of Dean Pelton. It was helpfully edited together by NBC, probably by some intern who went home and put it together on his own time as a way to heal the soul wounds he gets from slapping together commercials for “Betty White’s Off Their Rocker” and “Whitney.”

That poor bastard. Watch his video. It’s amazing, and it’ll make that intern feel like he’s done something valuable with his life.

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Conan O’Brien will be a guest on “The Late Show with David Letterman” next Thursday, which will be his first appearance on the show in over 10 years, and also the first time the two former NBC late-night hosts will have spoken publicly since Conan got jobbed out of “The Tonight Show” in 2010 by Chins McGillicutty. Seeing as Letterman got hosed out of the same job by the same guy almost 20 years earlier, I imagine they’ll have plenty to talk about. Conan has tried very hard to take the high road in the past while discussing the events that led to his exit from NBC, but Letterman gleefully takes every opportunity he can to mock Leno, so this certainly seems like must-watch television for anyone who likes either of the two, or just hates Leno’s big dumb face.

Speaking of Conan, Nina Dobrev from “The Vampire Diaries” was a guest on his show last night, and she did some kind of yoga thingy that involved her folding herself up like cannoli and rubbing his swimsuit area with her bare feet, much to the delight of Conan and fellow guest Joel McHale (see left side of the banner pic). I will temporarily put aside my firm belief that feet are disgusting and should be covered up at all times to make this point: Between Alison Brie’s innuendo-heavy balloon animal work last night on “The Tonight Show,” and whatever the hell Nina Dobrev is doing here, being a late-night talk show host looks cool and you should probably quit your job to go become one.

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As had been rumored earlier in the week, ABC has officially canceled “Cougar Town,” and TBS has swooped in and renewed the show for two more seasons of 15 episodes apiece. The cul-de-sac crew will be back in early 2013, and because TBS also bought the rights to the show’s first 61 episodes, you’ll be seeing a lot of “Cougar Town” on TBS in the coming years.

Let’s celebrate this occasion appropriately with Laurie Keller’s Best “Cougar Town” GIFs.

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“Game of Thrones” is the perfect show for the Internet. It’s based on a mega-popular book beloved by fantasy and non-fantasy nerds alike. It’s bloody (decapitations!), thrilling (sword fights!), sexy (boobs!), and endlessly GIF-able (Joffrey slaps! Dragons!). And millions of people are illegally downloading it every week.

According to numbers from the BitTorrent-tracking and analysis firm Big Champagne [Ed. Note: that’s a great name for an upper-middle class rapper], the second season of “Game of Thrones” has been downloaded more than 25 million times from public torrent trackers since it began in early April, and its piracy hit a new peak following April 30th’s episode, with more than 2.5 million downloads in a day. (Via)

“GoT” was the second most pirated show of 2011, and its season two numbers are consistently higher than last year’s #1, season six of “Dexter” (what?). The reason why so many are watching the show via illegal means isn’t difficult to figure out, either: their only other option is to have an expensive cable package. The new episodes aren’t available on Hulu, Netflix, or iTunes, and you need cable to access HBO Go. So, as one theory goes, why not download when HBO makes access so difficult? It’s not like the show’s ratings or DVD sales are hurting.

I’m not gonna lie: I didn’t have HBO when season one aired, so I downloaded every episode via the Pirate Bay. But right before season two, I added HBO to my cable package, just for “GoT.” Then I’ll keep it for “The Newsroom,” and then “Boardwalk Empire,” and then…damn, they got me. I’m neither for or against torrenting (I’d be a hypocrite to condemn it), but I do wish HBO would make accessibility to their shows easier, so that everyone can enjoy (if not “enjoy”) the beauty that is Margaery not on a tiny laptop, but on a big TV.