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This summer, the groundbreaking hit series Orange Is the New Black is coming to an end. Yesterday, Netflix released the following teaser video and first look images announcing that the series will conclude with the seventh and final season launching globally on Netflix on Friday, July 26. Orange Is The New Black ushered in a monumental era of television, and for six unforgettable seasons has fearlessly tackled some of the most difficult, relevant, and human stories of our time. In its final season, the ladies of Litchfield come to terms with the fact that prison has changed them forever.

Piper struggles with life on the outside, while life in Max, as corrupt and unjust as ever, goes on without her. Taystee's friendship with Cindy still hangs in the balance as her life sentence looms, Gloria and her kitchen staff are confronted by the hard truth of Polycon's newest profit stream, while others chase drugs or dreams and grapple with the reality of their place in this world.

This summer, Lifetime brings viewers' favorite novels to life with Book to Screen movies, every Saturday night beginning this June with Pride & Prejudice: Atlanta, Adriana Trigiani's Very Valentine, three Jane Green titles, Tempting Fate, To Have and To Hold and Family Pictures, and will continue through July and August with the premieres of the V.C Andrews' Casteel Family Movie Series Event. The V.C. event is airing consecutively every Saturday at 8pm ET/PT July 27 through August 24. Marking the last known series written by prolific writer V.C. Andrews, the titles in the quintet include Heaven, Dark Angel, Fallen Hearts, Gates of Paradise and Web of Dreams. The V.C. Andrews Movie Series Event follows Heaven Casteel and her siblings after their father devises a scheme that threatens to destroy their dreams and separate the family forever. Stars across all five films include, Annalise Basso, Julie Benz, Kelly Rutherford, Daphne Zuniga, Jennifer LaPorte and Jason Priestley, who also directs Fallen Hearts.

Welcome to SitcomsOnline Digest! We're now into the second half of fall, the leaves are falling, it's starting to get legitimately cold... and what better way to work around that than to sit around and watch some sitcoms? This week, we've got news about a new Showtime series under development starring Vanessa Bayer, we're hearing that Orange is the New Black may be spawning a sequel, and more. Let's get going!

HIGHLIGHTS FROM SITCOMSONLINE.COM AND AROUND THE WEB

Welcome to SitcomsOnline Digest! We're already at that point in the new fall season where the pack is being separated: the winners versus the losers! Specifically, we're hearing about some of the winners this week, or the new series that have received full season orders. Still no verdict on any of the losers just yet, but we have some likely suspects for that (we'll leave you to guess). We're also hearing of the cancellation of a popular Netflix series and more. Let's get going!

HIGHLIGHTS FROM SITCOMSONLINE.COM AND AROUND THE WEB

It's time for another edition of Fri-Yay! That means we will take a look back on some sitcom happenings in recent days or weeks or other fun sitcomy stuff. It's a sitcom lover's paradise! Happy Fri-Yay!

by Vincent

Classifying Orange Is the New Black as a "sitcom" may be stretching it a bit. It's an hour long, and often feels more dramatic than comedic. But in the dog days of summer, it's a little difficult to spot any genuine sitcoms worth discussing. Plus, Orange's balance between comedy and drama is increasingly indicative of the way TV comedy is headed, blending the difference between comedy and drama - after all, shows structured like more traditional sitcoms like One Day at a Time or animated comedies like Bojack Horseman often feel even more dramatic than Orange at times. Genre is becoming increasingly blended, and part of that reality has added to Orange's struggle to keep up its initial quality and interest in its most recent seasons.

Orange was initially presented as a somewhat light-hearted look at life in a women's prison that nevertheless took its characters and the situation they were in seriously. The world that it introduced us to was fairly grim, but the characters were lively, fun, and lovable. We liked hanging out at Litchfield, even if we acknowledged that our characters didn't. Still, because we cared about the characters so deeply, the show was able to cover serious topics well - we wanted these characters to do well, and we got frustrated when the prison system treated them with injustice. It was a delicate, difficult balance that the show managed to navigate incredibly well in its first three seasons.

However, the show took a turn somewhere in season four, a season that was markedly darker than anything the show had attempted before. The season was incredibly grim, shedding a light on issues like the prison industrial complex and showcasing the level of abuse that prisoners may go through. Without spoiling a major plot point, the season ended on an absolutely heartbreaking note - one that wound up being a bit controversial. Whether or not you felt that the season's climax was earned or not, it was clearly a turning point for the series. Since that moment, the show's previous balance has felt off. This is no longer a world we want to spend any time in, and it's gotten to the point where each episode almost feels like we're simply watching characters we love be tortured, as their circumstances somehow get worse and worse. And yet, because the show is presented as a "dramadey", there are still moments of comedy inserted in, which makes the tone feel jumbled. Things are very serious, and yet...the show is still making ill-timed jokes. It's an example of how the blending of tone that shows like to do can be an incredibly difficult balance to make. Frankly, I'm really hoping that the already-ordered seventh season of Orange will be its last. The show's sixth season (released a few weeks ago) had some great moments and was a marked improvement over the incredibly messy fifth season, but it still feels as if the show has lost its sense of what it wants to be, trapped in big, dramatic storylines with seemingly no easy out. Orange was a landmark series for television, but it may be time to for it to gracefully bow out, preserving its legacy before its tone gets even more muddy.

A King of the Hill Labor Day Marathon has been added to Comedy Central's line-up on Monday, September 3, 2018 from 7am-4am. The episodes in the marathon will go in order beginning with the Pilot episode. All 12 first season episodes will air, followed by the entire second season (23 episodes) and the first ten episodes of season three. King of the Hill regularly airs in the late nights on Comedy Central, with times varying, sometimes from 12-1:30am. The series started on the network on July 23, as we mentioned. Comedy Central also airs other off-network series such as Scrubs, The Office, That '70s Show, and Futurama. In King of the Hill, which originally aired on Fox from 1997 to 2010, depicts the life and times of Hank Hill, his family and their neighbors in the fictional suburb of Arlen, Texas, the heartland of America. A hard-working, loyal family man and proud Texan, Hank is assistant manager of Strickland Propane. He's an average Joe who sees himself as the voice of common sense and reason in a world of incompetent sales clerks, meddling bureaucrats and do-good liberals. Created by Mike Judge and Greg Daniels, King of the Hill is executive produced by Judge, Daniels, Howard Klein, Michael Rotenberg, John Altschuler and Dave Krinsky.