Fans of "Happy Endings" may only have two last chances -- at 8 and 8:30 p.m. Friday on  6 ABC --  to see the series, a cult fave whose cult probably isn't large enough to keep it going. (Though nothing is official.)

Sorry to bring you down.

For the rest of you who watch TV on Fridays, there's still plenty to see, with new episodes of just about everything on the major networks (and the original "Iron Man" on FX, beginning at 7).

You may also want to check out:

"Broadway or Bust" (10 p.m., WHYY 12). This PBS three-parter, which is being rerun starting Friday, follows kids preparing for the National High School Musical Theater Awards in New York. What I didn't realize the first time it was on: One of the coaches is Philadelphia's own Leslie Odom Jr. (who can also be seen at 8 p.m. Saturdays in NBC's "Smash").

You can read an earlier interview I did with Odom here.

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"The Big Bang Theory" (8 p.m., CBS 3) doesn't need big guest stars to draw a crowd, but that doesn't mean Bob Newhart's appearance as the guys' childhood idol, "Professor Proton," isn't an event.

Watching Jim Parsons (Sheldon) with the star of "The Bob Newhart Show" and "Newhart" had me laughing harder than I have at anything on TV in a while (and was reportedly a thrill for those members of the cast who grew up watching Newhart).

You can read my interview with the legendary comedian here.

You may also want to check out:

 -- "Parks and Recreation" (9:31 p.m., NBC10). Hard to believe it's been a year since Leslie Knope (Amy Poehler) became a city councilwoman, but the Season 5 finale finds her celebrating. Let's hope there'll be more to celebrate when  NBC unveils its fall schedule later this month, since "Parks and Rec" still hasn't been renewed.

-- "Zach Stone Is Gonna Be Famous" (10:30 p.m., MTV). The network's newest scripted series stars Bo Burnham, who co-created (and writes and directs) this story about a recent high school graduate who decides to forgo college to launch his own "reality" show. (And if that sounds too much like real life, there's always "Scandal" -- 10 p.m., 6 ABC -- where the president's in trouble. Again.)

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Two very different views of the intelligence community are on television Wednesday, as HBO presents the documentary "Manhunt: The Inside Story of the Hunt for bin Laden" at 8 p.m. and FX wraps up the first season of "The Americans," its kickass drama about Russian spies in Reagan-era Washington, D.C., at 10.

While obviously less dramatic than "Zero Dark Thirty," the HBO doc nevertheless makes the point that the success of this particular manhunt depended at least as much on the dogged work of analysts -- many of them part of a group of women known as "The Sisterhood" --  fitting together pieces of a puzzle over many years as it dd on the "enhanced interrogation techniques" for which some in "Manhunt" make no apologies.

"I was counseled once, in a performance review, that I was spending too much time working on bin Laden,” recalls Cindy Storer, a former CIA operative. "Yes, we were borderline obsessed. But I thought it was for a good reason."

Field work's much more in the forefront of "The Americans," whose May Day season finale may be one of the most satisfying I've seen in a while. (And not just because Margo Martindale finally gets to wig out, too.) If you've been following the adventures of undercover agents Philip (Matthew Rhys) and Elizabeth Jennings (Keri Russell), you won't want to miss a minute.

You may also want to check out:

-- "Family Tools" (8:30 p.m., 6 ABC). When a single-camera comedy works -- "Modern Family," "Arrested Development" -- it's a thing of beauty, funny in a way that lets individual viewers decided where the laughs are, unprompted by a studio audience. When it doesn't -- well, then you get something like "Family Tools," a show that leaves its audience with nowhere to look when the laughter doesn't come naturally. If at all.

Less somehow than the sum of its parts, this late-in-the-season sitcom stars Kyle Bornheimer ("Worst Week") as Jack Shea, who returns home from his so far not very successful life to take over the family handyman business when his father, Tony (J.K. Simmons), has a heart attack. Leah Remini plays Jack's aunt, who insists on this arrangment, Edi Gathegi, Tony's sassy assistant, Darren, who apparently comes with the business. (If you didn't think men could be described as "sassy," well, it's a sitcom word for a character who probably doesn't exist outside the boundaries of a sitcom.)

I pretty much watched the clock for every minute of  the pilot, and  though a second episode made available by ABC seemed marginally better, the improvement wasn't great enough to warrant suggestions for retooling.

If "Family Tools" doesn't make you appreciate "The Neighbors," I don't know what will.

Something fun happens on Fox's "New Girl" Tuesday -- and something not so much fun.

The network, apparently counting on Gordon Ramsay's "Hell's Kitchen" to deliver viewers, has decided to start the Zooey Deschanel comedy two minutes early, at 8:58 p.m., for the next three weeks. That means if you're recording "New Girl," you might run into some conflicts in the previous hour.

It's a nasty move when a network's doing really well in a particular time slot. It's a puzzling one when, well, it's not. Chances are NBC's "The Voice" and CBS' "NCIS" will dominate from 8 to 9  -- why make it harder on people trying to catch more than one show?

Still, for those who can work it out, both "New Girl" and "The Mindy Project" (9:30 p.m., Fox 29) have strong episodes. Chloe Sevigny ("Big Love") begins a three-episode arc on "Mindy," which is also marked by the reappearance of the brothers Duplass (Mark and Jay) as the midwives.

You may also want to check out:

-- "Grimm" (10 p.m., NBC10). The latest attempt to shore up the time slot that "Smash" and "Ready for Love" couldn't make it in involves shifting the recently renewed drama about fairy-tale monsters living among us from Fridays (and, not incidentally, giving it "The Voice" as a lead-in).

-- "Awkward" (10 p.m., MTV).  The episode, the fourth of the third season, is titled, "Let's Talk About Sex." Really? What else has this high school series been talking about all this time? Certainly not algebra.

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A couple of shows that blend romantic comedy with murder -- the season finale of Fox's "Bones" (8 p.m., Fox 29) and ABC's "Castle" (10 p.m., 6 ABC) -- might lighten the mood a little for those planning to catch the Season 1 finale of Fox's "The Following" (9 p.m., Fox 29).

I've stuck with "The Following" this long, so I'm unlikely to miss "The Final Chapter." Though since the show's already renewed for next year, I'm not sure how final that chapter's meant to be.

Presumably Philadelphia's Kevin Bacon, who stars as former FBI agent Ryan Hardy, will  be back. Will Joe Carroll, the uber-serial killer played by James Purefoy, also survive the night?

 You may also want to check out:

-- "The Big C: Hereafter" (10 p.m., Showtime). The dark comedy starring Laura Linney as a woman dying of cancer heads into the home stretch with the first of four one-hour episodes. See today's review.

-- "How I Met Your Mother" (8 p.m., CBS 3). I gave up on the "Mother" quest some time ago, but even I'm a little curious about the bachelor party for  Barney (Neil Patrick Harris) in an episode titled "The Bro Mitzvah."

-- "Rectify" (10 p.m., Sundance Channel). Aden Young stars as a man released from prison after 19 years on Death Row for a murder he may not after all, have committed.  If you missed last week's two-hour premiere, the second hour is rerunning at 9.

I spent last Friday night watching Boston's ABC station, WCVB, online for what turned out to be the best coverage available of the capture of the second suspect in the marathon bombing. On TV, meanwhile, plenty of things were being pre-empted for the the bombing story, including the episode of NBC's "Grimm" in which Portland is threatened with a volcano.

The volcano alert's back on as "Grimm" returns (9 p.m., NBC10) with an episode that was briefly available online until the network decided to air it a week late instead.

But if you saw it, then you might want to see the generally volcano-free "Shark Tank" (9 p.m., 6 ABC), where cupcakes in a jar are among the ideas being pitched this week. (Some of us prefer to apply them directly to our hips, but if others want to keep cupcakes in jars, it's fine with me.)

You may also want to check out:

-- "Rock Center with Brian Williams" (10 p.m., NBC10). Natalie Morales interviews Celeste and Sydney Corcoran, the mother and daughter severely injured in the Boston Marathon bombings.

-- "Happy Endings" (8 and 8:30 p.m., 6 ABC). These two episodes were also pre-empted last week for news coverage.

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Fans of NBC's "Parenthood" won't have to sweat it out until the fall schedule announcements in mid-May.

The network announced Friday that it had ordered a full 22-episode season for "Parenthood" -- its biggest for a while -- guaranteeing us even more time with the Bravermans next season.

Also getting early renewals (and full-season orders): "Revolution," "Chicago Fire," "Grimm" and "Law & Order: SVU," which will enter its 15th season this fall.

For those still worried about other NBC shows, NBC entertainment president Jennfer Salke promised more announcements to come. NBC announces its 2013-14 schedule to advertisers in New York on May 13.

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With the advent of May sweeps  -- which, yes, don't always wait for May -- you probably don't need help finding something to watch Thursday, because almost everything on the broadcast networks is new, with the exception of an 8:30 p.m. rerun of NBC's "The Office," which will be followed at 9 by a new one that includes another appearance by Roseanne Barr as Andy's new agent.

But "Scandal" addicts -- you know who you are -- may be particularly happy to learn that the reruns are over and that Thursday's episode (10 p.m., 6 ABC) will feature a highly charged scene between Olivia (Kerry Washington) and Fitz (Tony Goldwyn), who can't seem to remember that he's supposed to be the president of the United States, not just Olivia's stalker. Oh, and we're also going to learn more about Huck (Guillermo Diaz). So there's that.

Can we pause here for a moment to admire the way "Scandal" has managed to reverse Olivia and Fitz's roles in the hospital scene? Because it seems like just a few months ago that he was in the bed and she was the one visiting him. Come to think of it, a lot of things in "Scandal" seem to happen in that hospital. (See clip below.)

A couple of other things to note about Thursday's schedule:

-- "Project Runway" (9 p.m., Lifetime) Designer Michael Kors, missing from "Runway" all season, returns as guest judge for the finale. Oh, and there's a fashion show, following by someone winning  a car and some money.

-- "Hannibal" (10 p.m., NBC 10). The tasteless food-related title for this episode is "Coquilles," but I'm more interested in the latest way Hannibal Lecter (Mads Mikkelsen) finds to worm his way into the lives of the FBI agents' lives. If it weren't for the cannibalism thing, he'd be the perfect TV therapist.

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One of the great pleasures of this first season of FX's '80s spy drama "The Americans" has been the opportunity to see Richard Thomas somewhere other than the Hallmark Channel.

Wednesday's episode -- the next-to-the-last of the season -- features plenty of face time for the former "John Boy" Walton, who plays FBI agent Frank Gaad. It also includes  the return of Caspar Weinberger's clock, which fans of the show may recall as having been bugged earlier this year.

The late defense secretary remains offscreen, but his wife is briefly a character in the show. For those who wonder about the real Jane Weinberger, who died in 2009 at the age of 91, Wikipedia reports that she published more than a dozen books, many of them for children, but omits mention of any incident involving a clock planted in her home by Russian spies. (Go figure.)

On this final night before May(ish) sweeps begin, there isn't much new on the broadcast networks beyond Fox's "American Idol" and CBS' "Survivor,"  but you may also want to check out:

-- "Nova" (9 p.m., WHYY 12). "Australia's First 4 Billion Years: Monsters." "Come face-to-face with the previously unknown reptilian rulers of prehistoric Australia," says PBS, which sweetens the deal a little with the mention of the duck-billed platypus, which might be my favorite duck-billed mammal ever.

-- "Duck Dynasty" (10 p.m., A&E). Because the show is for some reason going to Hawaii. Which, if it were actually the sitcom some assume it is, probably wouldn't happen for another couple of seasons.

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