There is set to be Season 13 of It’s Always Sunny in Philadephia, but it will apparently be a year late.
Kaitilin Olson (“Sweet” Dee) recently told TV Guide that Sunny will be pushed back a year while the cast works on other projects:
“We ended up pushing our next season a year because we were all busy with separate projects this year,” Olson said. “So at the end of this coming shooting season of The Mick I’ll step right into Sunny after that.”
Olson is currently starring in Fox’s The Mick, and TV Guide notes how that show is set to film into next spring. Rob McElhenney (Mac) is directing a film based on the video game Minecraft (he also just had a hilarious cameo in Fargo), and Danny DeVito (Frank) is starring in the play The Price on Broadway.
And then there’s Glenn Howerton (Dennis).
The 12th season of Sunny recently concluded, and the way the season finished suggested that Howerton may not return for a 13th season of FXX’s comedy series. Howerton then confirmed to Uproxx after the finale that he may not return to the show:
So… it’s a little complicated. I may seem a little bit evasive here, and I don’t mean to. It’s not entirely certain whether I am or am not. I might be. I might be, but I might not be. That really is the truth. Just to be clear, to dispel any potential weirdness, it has nothing to do with my relationship to anyone on the show or Rob or Charlie or anyone like that. It’s partially a creative and personal decision. We may be taking an extended hiatus between season 12 and season 13. So I’m certainly staying open to the possibility of doing more, but there is a possibility that I will not.
Well, more news came out on Monday that would seem to even lessen the chances Howerton returns to Sunny. Variety reports that NBC has greenlit A.P. Bio, a comedy series in which Howerton stars as a high school teacher:
NBC has greenlit “A.P. Bio” to series, marking the first comedy order for the network’s 2017-2018 slate, Variety has learned.
Starring “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia’s” Glenn Howerton, the series hails from writer Mike O’Brien and executive producers Seth Meyers and Lorne Michaels.
“A.P. Bio” is about a philosophy scholar (Howerton) who loses out on his dream job and goes to work as a high school Advanced Placement biology teacher, but he makes it clear he will not be teaching any biology. Realizing he has a room full of honor roll students at his disposal, he decides instead to use the kids to his own benefit.
Now, perhaps part of Sunny being pushed back a year is a way to still make it work for Howerton, but we’ll have to wait and see.
And if Howerton is not in the show, is it even worth Sunny continuing? Dennis Reynolds is arguably the main character in the series, and after 12 years, it would seem like the right time to call things quits if he’s not a part of it.
Then again, it’s been questioned for years how Sunny can keep going on, and they’ve somehow been able to keep the show holding up as well as ever. But without Howerton, that would be significantly more challenging.
