The Office returns April 10th and more NBC news: Scrubs, 30 Rock, Journeyman

It seems like a long ways off, but according to the New York Times, The Office will return to NBC with new episodes starting April 10th.

Some other comedies will actually start earlier, like Two and a Half Men on CBS, but The Office is a more complicated shoot and thus takes a bit longer to produce. Men uses three separate cameras to tape, while The Office uses a one camera film style.

A whole lot of techno babble just to get across that we have awhile to wait.

The bummer is that the series will skip their annual Christmas episode, the first one being my favorite of all time (“We’ll sell it to charity, because that is what Christmas is all about” – Michael Scott).

They had a script all done and ready to go right before the strike, so it will be easy to start filming right away, but the next one was supposed to be the X-Mas episode and will have to be scrapped.

How many episodes will we get?

Greg Daniels, executive producer of “The Office,� said, “We’re going to do another six,� though he added, “We might be able to squeeze in seven if NBC asks for them.�

Not too shabby.

So what about Journeyman?

According to the NY Times article, there is still some semblance of hope.

And by hope, I just mean it’s not totally dead yet.

A few series got orders for hurry-up episodes this week and for those not on the list, their future is up in the air. The article states that shows like Journeyman and Bionic Woman have until May to truly know their fate as that’s when the networks announce fall lineups.

It’s not a big deal that new shows from last season aren’t coming back THIS season, because that is what is happening everywhere.

But when the fall schedule is announced, I guess we’ll know for sure. Although I thought I heard Bionic was pretty much dead, so who knows.

The cool news is that it appears Scrubs will be saved. Creator Bill Lawrence wanted to have 3-5 more episodes to finish off the series and NBC has to decide on just how many. That means with the five already in the can, we could have as little as eight and as many as 10 more.

Awesome. We may get that finale afterall!

And shows like 30 Rock and ER are still waiting to see how many orders they will get. ER may actually get extended another season NBC says despite the plans to have had it go the way of Scrubs this year.

30 Rock is expected to get around five more episodes.