Deadline is reporting that comedian Patton Oswalt and actress Rosemarie DeWitt are both joining Season 2 of Aaron Sorkin's HBO series, The Newsroom, in recurring roles.

Oswalt, who worked with DeWitt previously on Showtime's United States of Tara, will play Jonas Pfeiffer, the new Vice President of Human Resources of ACN, while DeWitt will play Rebecca Halliday, a litigator who’s been hired to defend ACN in a multimillion-dollar wrongful-termination suit.

DeWitt and Oswalt from United States of Tara.

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USA announced today that Burn Notice has been given a 13-episode order for a seventh season. This will mark the third show in the cable network's history to reach 100 episodes.

"Burn Notice is like a fine wine that gets better with age," said USA Network Co-Presidents Chris McCumber and Jeff Wachtel. "Delivering high-octane action, gripping drama and nearly 7 million viewers for the mid-season finale, this veteran series is a proven staple of our portfolio."

This announcement completes the network's renewals of series for the summer. Paired with USA's Suits -- which was recently given its own third-season order -- Burn Notice had the most successful block on television during its sixth season run.

The news wasn't so good recently for USA's Fairly Legal, Common Law and Political Animals, all of which have been cancelled.

Max Nicholson is a writer for IGN, and he desperately seeks your approval. Show him some love by following @Max_Nicholson on Twitter, or MaxNicholson on IGN.

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Transformers Prime: Season 2 is coming to a close (don’t worry, Season 3 is on the way!), but the cool and compelling new take on the Transformers story is wrapping up the year in style – with a total takeover of The Hub!

Beginning Thursday, November 1st at 5:30pm ET, The Hub will air all 52 episodes of the series back-to-back over the course of a 26-hour marathon, leading up to the debut of the Season 2 finale on Friday, November 2nd at 7pm ET. The finale, “Darkest Hour,” finds Megatron setting in motion a plan forcing Optimus to make a decision that has a devastating effect on the Autobot team.

To celebrate the occasion, The Hub has made a very special new poster, containing an image from every single episode of Transformers Prime so far. And we’ve got the exclusive debut of the poster below, along with a giveaway offer…

Only 100 of these posters have been produced by The Hub, and I’m giving away ten of them on my IGN blog. Click here to enter to win!

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Nikita returned last week for Season 3, with a very different new scenario for the characters, as they are back inside Division – albeit a Division under new management.

I spoke to Lyndsy Fonseca about what’s to come this year for Alex, who’s had quite a few dramatic changes occur of late. We discussed Alex’s celebrity status, her dynamic with Sean and Amanda -- and a popular non-relationship with Owen -- and more. We also chatted about this Friday night’s exciting new episode, in which Nikita and Alex discover a young girl who has been taken by a former Division agent and apparently been brainwashed. Plus, will Fonseca be able to reprise her role as Katie in Kick-Ass 2?

IGN: Things have changed for everyone on the show, but for Alex, this is really the first time she is allowed to be herself – she’s not a double agent, she’s not a rogue agent, and everyone knows her true identity. What is this transition like for her?

Fonseca: I think in the bigger picture, her being this kind of public persona has brought a lot of power to her and this maturity. It hasn’t come easily. I don’t think Alex is the kind of person that enjoys dressing up like that and being in that public way. But I think what it does is forces her to grow up a little bit and kind of take charge on her own. As the season continues, we’re not going to be focusing a lot on her public persona, but I think she brings a lot of that to Division to help her deal with being there.

IGN: The premiere used her celebrity in a very fun and funny way, but going forward, how do you deal with someone who’s been trained to be a spy being very publically known? 

Fonseca: Well, Alex is going to go in a very different direction than I think most of the audience is going to expect. We start off this season with her in this really great place and her using her celebrity to benefit the mission. But it’s going to go in a very different direction. She’ll end up really having to deal with certain things that… You know, I think that a lot of things have been cleaned up, like her relationship with her mother, and Nikita and her are on such good terms. It’s like the final thing is her addiction self, and she’s really going to have to struggle with.

IGN: So that's going to be coming back into focus?

Fonseca: I think that's been a little bit buried, because there’s been other things to deal with. Now that she’s in this new place where they’re all agents, they’re all in this together. But she gets hurt and there’s pain and it’s going to really force her to deal with things that she thought she had resolved before.

IGN: I’ve seen the episode airing Friday, with that great young girl…

Fonseca: She was amazing.

IGN: It seems as though this girl brings up a lot of emotions and memories for both Nikita and Alex.

Fonseca: I think that it’s kind of shocking to see a girl her age in Division, because she is the age that Alex was when she was sold into slavery and then a few years later was on the streets, doing drugs. You see this girl who’s just such a shell of herself. You don’t know if it’s Stockholm syndrome. You can’t really figure it out. And the pain in her eyes, everything that she’s dealing with, it’s so similar to Alex’s life and I think she sees a lot of herself. And I think Alex just doesn’t want to go there. What she ends up doing is going to the parents a lot and the mother and I think that is something that she can relate to as well. Because Alex’s mom didn’t know that she was alive and I’m trying to find out all this information, but I can’t tell them that I know that their child is alive. So dealing with the mom really is difficult in a lot of ways for Alex.

IGN: The first episodes this season touch upon a lot of the big emotional points the show has set up in the first two years, but as far as overall mythology goes, they’re more standalone. How is this season mapping out compared to the first two?

Fonseca: Especially at the beginning, it is a little bit more standalone and kind of bad guy of the week or a mission [of the week] at first. But there are going to be recurring storylines that we’re going to be doing that wall continue through all the episodes as well. It’s kind of a little bit of both. But it’s gonna be different, because there’s no Percy, you know? We’re in this together and Amanda is going to come in and out and we’re trying to figure out where she’s coming from and what her plan of action is. But it is a little bit more standalone than it has been in the past.

IGN: You mentioned Amanda and when I asked on Twitter if fans had questions for you, quite a few seemed to enjoy the interplay between Alex and Amanda.

Fonseca: I love that!

IGN: Will there be more of that this year? Obviously, it’s more difficult, because they’re no longer co-existing inside Division.

Fonseca: Right. Yes, they’re definitely going to be in a storyline together, but we have not shot it yet. I know that it’s in the future for the season, but in all honesty, I don’t know how it’s going to come out. I think the writers are still figuring that out! [Laughs] But it’s going to be good, because she’s going to have a hold over Alex in some way… So it’s not going to be taken lightly. It’s not going to be fun thing. Amanda is going to go all out.

IGN: And we know Amanda can be very scary when she goes all out.

Fonseca: Oh my gosh… She’s so good!

IGN: How are things going for Alex and Sean?

Fonseca: Well, it’s funny, because at work today, the only scene that I have to do is to make out with Sean Pierce in a closet. It’s a very hard day at the office. [Laughs]

But no, it’s not going to be an easy relationship. There’s going to be this thing where Sean really puts it out there and makes an ultimatum and says, “It’s me or Division” and “Why are we here? What are we doing here? We have a life to live.” And I think that contrast is totally confusing for Alex. It’s like, “What do you mean? This in my life. What am I going to do? Go sit on a beach somewhere and drink Mimosa?” That’s not reality, you know? And that’s going to cause problems because they want different things, even though they want each other.

IGN: Meanwhile, it’s funny, because a sect of Nikita fans have been curious about this whole Alex/Owen dynamic, even though they’ve never met...

Fonseca: I know. It’s so weird how there are shippers for that, when we’ve never even met! It’s very flattering! It’s great. It’s so cool.

IGN: So that being said, this season they will finally meet and interact. What do they make of each other initially?

Fonseca: You know, it’s kind of cool… I made the decision that there’s always been this kind of animalistic part of Alex. There’s this kid that’s not a celebrity… the really down and dirty part. And I feel like Owen can be like that. This guy is very, very animalistic in many ways. And I think they kind of connect in that and sense that about each other. And I don’t mean that necessarily in a relationship kind of way. It’s more that he comes back in the picture and it’s like, “What is your deal, man?” There’s definitely sparks and some sort of understanding that they have with each other.

IGN: You mentioned Alex’s addiction issues. Owen recently got over his own addiction to the regimen. Could there be some bonding there?

Fonseca: There is that. We haven’t really touched on that topic as characters yet, but absolutely. That would be a really cool thing to play as well.

IGN: So at San Diego Comic-Con, you were crossing your fingers – has it worked out with your Nikita schedule to do Kick-Ass 2?

Fonseca: It has! CW and Warmer Bros. and the creators here at Nikita, they’ve been so wonderful about letting me out for a week to go to London and do a little bit in Kick-Ass. I’m very limited in my time that I can go there, but the fact that they let me do it at all… I actually leave on Saturday to go shoot for a week there. And I’m really excited!

IGN: My last question comes via your costar, Devon Sawa. When I asked on Twitter if anyone had questions or you, he asked if himself, Shane West, Dillon Casey and Aaron Stanford were Ninja Turtles… who would be Raphael?

Fonseca: [Laughs] Well, that’s funny, because they were having this major debate two nights ago over dinner. And honestly, I had no idea what they were talking about, because I’ve never seen Ninja Turtles! I don’t know… If I’d seen it, I’d have an opinion! Sorry!

Nikita airs Friday nights at 9pm ET/PT on The CW.

Eric Goldman is Executive Editor of IGN TV. You can follow him on on Twitter at @EricIGN and IGN at ericgoldman-ign.

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One of our favorite comedies here at IGN TV, Parks and Recreation is currently in the midst of Season 5 – in a new season that is splitting our time between Pawnee and Washington, DC. But even while Ben and April are off in DC, the Parks department still has plenty of dependable folks in place, including Donna and Jerry.

I recently visited the set of Parks and Rec while production was underway on this year’s Halloween episode, airing this week. On the sets built for Ben and April’s new DC offices, I sat down with Retta and Jim O’Heir to talk about Season 5 and how art can imitate life on Parks and Rec.

IGN TV: Season 5 -- as this very set attests to -- has the biggest changes the show has ever had.

Jim O’Heir: I would say, absolutely! Yeah, this is amazing, though. We have brilliant designers and set decorators.

Damn, Jerry! Jim O'Heir in Parks and Recreation.

Retta: It totally looks like we’re in a completely different place right now.

IGN: What’s it like for you guys to have the characters split up and not have that exact same group dynamic this year?

Retta: It doesn’t seem that different, honestly. Even though Ben and April are in DC, they’re here, so we get to see them.

IGN: [Laughs] So they don’t keep them ostracized from you on set?

Retta: No, it’s weird. I mean, we asked, but... [Laughs]

O’Heir: And we hadn’t done scenes with them for awhile, which was weird. We’d see them in hair and makeup. But yeah, my favorite stuff is when we’re all together. I love the conference room scenes when all the characters are together because there’s a lot of riffing and BS-ing, and we chat a lot. I miss when everyone’s not here. Basically, there are A and B stories -- sometimes C stories -- so you can go a whole week and not see somebody. But my favorite is when we’re all together.

IGN: You’re shooting the Halloween episode. I would hope there will be costumes involved?

O’Heir: There are costumes involved, absolutely.

Retta: But I don’t have a costume this year. I’ve only had one costume.

Retta as Donna Meagle in Parks and Recreation.

O’Heir: The first year I was in a dinosaur costume and -- other than a 10-second tag at the end -- it never made it in. And I was in that bastard for six or seven hours. It was crazy!

Retta: He had swamp ass...

O’Heir: I had swamp ass, like you read about! No, literally, I think I lost nine pounds that day, seriously. Dean Holland was directing that episode, and I said, “Oh my God!” And it wasn’t their intention, but they shoot so much and get so much great stuff that not everything’s going to make it. But it was the whole head, it was the whole nine yards.

Retta: He sent me a picture, and he was soaked. I was like, “Did it rain on set?” He’s like, “No.” [Laughs]

O’Heir: Yeah, I showered in my dressing room. I never do that, but I had to shower. I couldn't get in my car. It was nasty. This year I don’t have anything like that.

Retta: Do you have a costume this year, Jim?

O’Heir: No, but I do have that storyline. Hmm. Interesting...

Retta: Oh... Whatever! [Laughs]

IGN: Do you think Parks and Recreation has to end with Jerry’s ultimate triumph?

O’Heir: Yeah, so many people come up with so many endings that they want: An Uzi. Some people just want to see me take everybody out…

IGN: I think you should win the lottery.

O’Heir: [Laughs] But technically, they’ve let Jerry have the lottery: an amazing wife, daughters he loves, a wonderful home.

[Editor's Note: After this interview was conducted, we learned Jerry's wife would be played by Christie Brinkley no less!]

IGN: He's an artist!

O’Heir: He's an artist, he’s a pianist, so talented, and he’s hung like a horse, as we all know -- it’s nice when they could have art and life come together.

Retta: [Laughs] Whatever!

O’Heir: Hello! No, but you could go a lot of ways with that, how the Jerry story could end. But when we’re in Season 25 doing it, we’ll come up with an idea then. That’s how I look at it.

IGN: What’s Donna up to this season?

Retta: I’m still working on getting a love interest -- that I want to feel love with outside of the show. As it’s been reported, there’s also art imitating life with Donna and her Twitter account. She starts tweeting in the Parks department about a movie.

IGN: I’ve been quite enjoying you tweeting along with old Buffy episodes.

Retta: I tried to watch the end of it last night, but I was surprised at how tired I was. I was like, “Oh, I just missed this whole episode. I’m going to have to try this again later.”

O’Heir: Yeah, we’ve got to watch what we do in life because it’s ending up in the scripts.

IGN: Was it pretty direct? You started to really tweet those reactions to TV series and movies and everyone loves them, and then one day you came in and see they’ve put that in the script?

Retta: Mike [Schur] alluded to something. He said, “There’s something for you in my script.” I was like, “What is it?” He’s like, “And don’t try to guess it. I’ll be mad at you if you figure it out before you see it.” Then when I read it, I emailed him. I was like, “Yeah, bitch!” So they sent me the movie to watch, which was terrible, but I watched the whole freaking thing. I actually also watched the wrong movie because they were going to use a different movie and decided not to, so I had to watch two bad movies. Then they let me write some tweets myself. That was fun.

IGN: What’s the one that’s going to be on the show?

Retta: I don’t know. It depends on how they edit it. I do know that Dean, our director, enjoyed the hashtag. I wrote, “#Yuck” for one of the murders.

O’Heir: I only watched three minutes of the damn thing, and it’s horrendous.

Retta: Yeah, it’s really bad.

IGN: Is this a movie we’d be familiar with?

O’Heir: I don’t think so.

Retta: I don’t know… Well, I won’t say the name of the movie because it cracks me up, but it’s a Halloween horror flick, some cheesy, non-union thing.

Parks and Rec: Lucy Lawless on Romancing Ron Swanson

IGN: You’ve got some really fun guest stars this season, including Jonathan Banks from Breaking Bad.

Retta: I was very excited about that.

O’Heir: I worked with him 16 years ago. We did a movie in Vancouver. We did a remake of the old Harvey movie, the Jimmy Stewart film, and I hadn’t seen him since. But I saw him on the set last week, it was awesome. What a great guy. He seems as sweet now as he was then. Retta, of course, had a little bit of a crush.

Retta: I think I was a little bit crazy because I did a line from Breaking Bad to him, and he was like, “Really? That’s how you’re gonna kick this off.” [Laughs] But I was like, “Oh my God, I just tweeted out, ‘It’s a big war, Walter. Lot of meth heads,’” thinking I’m so funny. He’s like, “Really?” [Laughs]

O’Heir: And we have Lucy Lawless, who I met today for the first time. She was super sweet. Glenne Headly... Ben Schwartz is back, Jean-Ralphio. He’s here.

Retta: His hair is bananas.

O’Heir: It’s bigger every single time. I don’t know what’s going on. Who else do we have? We’ve got Clint Eastwood, Meryl Streep, Glenn Close...

IGN: [Laugh] But they’re just extras.

O’Heir: Yeah, I don’t know. I’m not sure of their talent yet. I don’t want to commit to them yet.

IGN: You mentioned the dinosaur costume mostly being cut, and your show has so many great deleted scenes on the DVDs. I’m always thinking, “Man, how much did they shoot?” At this point you must be pretty familiar with the fact that you’re going to shoot too much for the episode?

O’Heir: Yeah, sometimes as we’re shooting, we’re like, “Oh, well this will never make it.”

Retta: The one time I didn’t know, I got an email from Mike saying to me and Chelsea [Peretti], “Sorry, ladies. This didn’t make it in.” But they put it online. So they added it as an extra on NBC.com.

O’Heir: Yeah, if it’s a big scene that they know we’d be thinking about, you’ll get an email. They’ll let you know why. And it always comes down to the same thing: there are only 22 minutes. It’s all timing, and you have to tell a story. There are episodes where certain producers whose friends are on it, they get cut. There’s no, “Oh, we hate them!” It’s just, “What is the best story?” If the other stuff has to go, it’s got to go.

IGN: When you start on a show like this, you have no idea where it’s going to go. Has it been interesting for you to see how the characters have all developed? They’re so specific now, their voices.

Retta: I remember when we all started hating Jerry. It was such a weird thing, you know? There was just one thing, I think they gave Aziz, Tom, a line. But I felt like we were actively hating on you, not trying to win a competition. [Laughs] I feel like there was this one day where we’re all like, “F**k Jerry!” And then it became, “Damm, Jerry!”

O’Heir: Yeah, and it’s gone! But I love when you read the scripts you know everyone’s voice, so that’s fun. We all know the characters so well. When I read a script, I hear Donna’s voice in my head, and I totally know how she’s going to do that line.

Retta: It’s funny, like when I’m tweeting or if I just say something silly, I’ll get two or three people tweeting me back saying, “I totally hear Donna saying that! I hear that in Donna’s voice.” I go, “Well, I do speak like Donna, so I get it.”

IGN: Obviously you have the Twitter thing happening now, but have there been other times where it seems like they have taken little kernels, traits or things you’ve said and done that end up in the show?

Retta: I’ve talked about this before where -- because I say, “He can get it,” all the time -- I don’t know if that’s something the writers heard me say and incorporated it, but people say it to me all the time now because they know Donna says it.

O’Heir: Yeah, Mike Schur did an interview where someone said, “Which actor is most like their character?” He said, “Well, everybody has a chunk,” and then he goes, “except Jim O’Heir.” I was like, “I think that’s good?” [Laughs] Because Jerry’s a sweet guy. I mean, he’s a dumb ass in many ways, but he’s ultimately a sweet guy. He takes a lot of s**t and puts that smile right back on his face -- and he has not killed anybody yet, although he’s killed a burrito in his day. But yeah, I think in any acting role there’s always a part of you certainly sneaking around in there. But I don’t know.

IGN: And as you said, you have up to Season 25, so who knows what’s going to happen?

O’Heir: Yeah! And I’ve got to be honest, I might only stick around for 24. I hate to say that because I’ve always said I’d never leave a show early, but 24 seasons would make me how many years old? Oh, wow, I won’t even say. Let’s just say I’ll be having trouble with my continence. 24 might be it for me!

Parks and Recreation: “Halloween Surprise” airs Thursday, October 25th at 9:30pm ET/PT on NBC.

Eric Goldman is Executive Editor of IGN TV. You can follow him on on Twitter at @EricIGN and IGN at ericgoldman-ign.

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