Ratings are in a free fall. The judging panel was a $40 million bust. Viewers are exasperated over predictable themes and performances. Culture blogs are flooded with obituaries for American Idol. Confetti rained on Candice Glover Thursday night as she tearfully warbled her coronation song, winning the 12th season of the veteran singing competition. But was she singing at its funeral?

“It’s more like that body at the beginning of Monty Python and the Holy Grail who cries, ‘I’m not dead yet,’” Michael Slezak, senior editor at TV Line and longtime Idol expert, tells The Daily Beast. “Idol is like that leper. It might be mistaken for dead, but it’s not dead yet.”

Now that the dust has settled, it's easier to get a larger picture of what's going on for next season. The numbers: 51 scripted series have been ordered by the broadcast networks for the 2013–14 season. There are 29 new dramas for next season and 22 comedies. Thirty-one shows will launch in the fall, and 20 are being held for a later date, should some of the fall offerings fail to enflame the public's imagination. On the network level, ABC picked up 12 new scripted series; CBS ordered eight; NBC issued series pickups to 14, while Fox did the same for 12 scripted series. The CW claimed five new scripted shows.

Merida, the heroine of Pixar’s Brave, isn’t your typical Disney princess (no offense, Sleeping Beauty). She has frizzy hair; she beats off potential suitors with her archery skills; and (spoiler alert) she rides off on a horse without a prince in the end. So fans were baffled this week when Disney decided to give her a sexy makeover after adding her to their line of princess dolls. The new Merida had a slimmer waistline, beachy waves instead of untamed curls, and worst of all, no trademark bow and arrow. The new look caused such an uproar that it led to a Change.org petition with thousands of signatures to restore Merida’s original look—and Disney listened, sheepishly pulling the new Merida from its website. The heroine’s creator, Brenda Chapman, talks to Caroline Linton about what happened to the character modeled after her own daughter—and why it sends a bad message to girls. 

The scene in an English pub on Thursday:

Football Fan No. 1: “Hey, did you hear David Beckham’s retiring from professional football?”

The CW took the wraps off of its 2013-14 primetime schedule on Thursday morning, marking the final day of the broadcast network upfronts.

Among the changes afoot at the nearly seven-year old network: Hart of Dixie and Beauty and the Beast are moving to Mondays, Supernatural moves to Tuesdays, and The Carrie Diaries gets pushed to Fridays at 8 p.m. Nikita, which will have its final season of a six episodes, will be held until midseason. The network ordered five new dramas for next season, which will be scattered throughout Tuesdays (The Vampire Diaries spin-off The Originals), Wednesdays (The Tomorrow People), and Thursdays (period drama Reign) when The CW begins its fall season in October. Two additional dramas—Star-Crossed and The 100—will be held until midseason along with newly ordered reality show Famous in 12; their timeslots are still to be determined.

There was a media firestorm when Arrested Development’s Jason Bateman unwittingly tweeted a photo of his first day back on set for the show last August, revealing two-thirds of Comedy Central’s Workaholics co-stars and co-creators—Adam DeVine (Adam DeKamp) and Anders Holm (Anders “Ders” Holmvik)— in the background. Fans have been salivating for details on the popular show’s return to Netflix on May 26.

“Jason Bateman didn’t know we were on a TV show,” DeVine said in an interview with The Daily Beast. “He had no idea about Workaholics until then, and then he was like, ‘I guess these guys are really on a show,’ which is really cool. I’m such a huge Arrested Development fan.”