In what we’re really hoping isn’t the first step in Judy Greer getting subtly shifted into the “straitlaced friend of crazier people” role that’s exerted such a powerful gravitational pull on her entire non-Archer career, Fox has announced that it’s cast Patton Oswalt to star alongside the actress in her new sitcom pilot, HR. Oswalt will play the new CEO of the plastics company where Greer serves as head of human resources, and is being described as “an ideas guy” who “lives life at a higher octave than everyone else.” (We’re not sure what that means, exactly, unless Oswalt is going to deliver the character’s dialogue in falsetto, while Greer stands by, nodding and wondering where her more conventionally attractive best friend has gotten off to now.)
Although his work as a stand-up, actor, and author tends to push him toward darker, less mainstream projects, Oswalt’s no stranger to sitcoms; he first gained national prominence as the nerdy Spence on Kevin James’ The King Of Queens, and currently serves as the narrator for The Goldbergs on ABC. Now, he’ll be stepping into what, in an older generation, would be “the Stephen Root role,” as an eccentric rich person making things hard for his long-suffering employees, played now, and forever, by Judy Greer.