Much like a detective whose personality makes him difficult to get along with, yet we’ll be damned if he doesn’t always get his man, the Rainn Wilson-starring police drama Backstrom has landed at Fox with a series order, after being passed over during pilot season. CBS demonstrated a rare form of restraint in not picking up the crime procedural it originally ordered about an “offensive, irascible detective” (possibly balking when producers refused to rename it A.S.S., to better fit in with its lineup), leaving Fox to swoop in and order 13 episodes. That acquisition reunites Wilson on the same network with his former Office-mate Mindy Kaling, and continues the relationship between Fox and producer Hart Hanson, who will now shift his attention from Bones to Backstrom. Moving from CBS to Fox also bodes well for the show retaining some of its dark humor—Wilson himself describes it as “fun and disturbed”—as Wilson’s self-destructive investigator leads the Serious Crimes Unit through “Portland’s most sensitive cases,” such as who insulted Rolf’s homemade kimchi.
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