It's Always Sunny Could Go the Way of Curb Your Enthusiasm

You may have noticed that more and more of your favorite stars from FXX's It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia are appearing on other shows and films, leaving concern that the long-running comedy could be approaching its end. Kaitlin Olson is currently headlining Fox's The Mick, Charlie Day is in blockbuster movies and Glenn Howerton just got a starring gig on NBC's AP Bio.

Yet It's Always Sunny remains alive at FXX, with a renewal issued out in 2016 for two more seasons, the comedy's thirteenth and fourteenth. Season 12 ended in March 2017, but the series opted to take a break to let the stars work on other projects and get out of each other's hair for a while. It was rumored that Howerton was leaving the show, but he put that idea to rest at the Television Critics Association winter press tour Tuesday where he was promoting A.P. Bio.

"I've not officially left yet and I hope people understand that," Howerton said.

After the panel, TV Guide asked Howerton about when we can expect the next season of Sunny and he proposed a model that's worked for another on-again-off-again show.

"It's tough to say. We're picked up for two more seasons on Sunny, everybody decided to take a year off because everybody was so busy doing other things," Howerton told TV Guide. "But that production cycle is starting up [the writers room] again in February, but I don't know if this going to turn a Curb Your Enthusiasm thing, where we make them when we can, or if it's going to pick up where we left off this time and be every year again."

Is that the model he wants?

Check out more TCA coverage here

"We've talked about [doing it like Curb]," he continued. "We love the show and we love each other, we want to keep doing it, and if we could get away with doing it whenever we want, why not? I guess the thing that's tough about that is wrangling everybody if they're not under contract. But certainly creatively speaking we just want the show to be really good. So if any of us is feeling burned out and we think it's going to compromise the quality of the show, we just won't do it. We just won't do it. We'll do what we did this time where everyone was a little burnt out, we took a year off, and then we're coming back."

That sounds like a pretty, pretty, pretty good plan!

A.P. Bio premieres with a special preview airing Thursday, Feb 1 at 9:30/8:30c, with that episode and the next two available for streaming on the NBC App and Hulu. It will move to its regular time slot on Thursday, Mar. 1 at 9:30/8:30c. FXX has not announced a premiere date for Season 13 of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia.