Brushing himself off after a dustup with conservative activist James O’Keefe, Ed Begley Jr. has joined Starz’s live-action comedy series Blunt Talk, from Seth MacFarlane and Bored To Death creator Jonathan Ames. Despite the title—and the presence of Weeds veteran Romany Malco, who also recently joined the cast—the series is not about a marijuana talk show. Instead, Blunt Talk stars Patrick Stewart as legendary British reporter Walter Blunt, finding his legs stateside somewhere between the bottle and his cable news broadcast.
Helping—and hindering—Blunt’s attempt at a work-life balance are Jacki Weaver (Silver Linings Playbook) as his sympathetic producer/manager; Richard Lewis as Blunt’s appointed therapist, Dr. Weiss; and Adrian Scarborough (The King’s Speech) as an alcoholic manservant called Harry. And in a Doll & Em twist on a familiar dynamic, Dolly Wells (Pride And Prejudice And Zombies) keeps Blunt on track in newsroom as Celia, the cable news show’s senior producer and head writer.
Richard Melville Hall, a.k.a. Moby, and Sharon Lawrence (NYPD Blue) have also signed on to guest star; their roles are as yet unknown, but MacFarlane’s participation as executive producer leads us to assume that at least one of them will play a foul-mouthed parakeet or maybe a horny Beanie Baby. Starz has ordered two seasons and 20 episodes of Blunt Talk, the first of which will premiere this summer.