Today's apparently obligatory Beach Lane update: Nick Thune takes over for Patton Oswalt

As we reported late last week, NBC’s Beach Lane gave us reason to preemptively dislike it when it dumped Patton Oswalt after a single table read. At the time, we whimsically speculated that the show had “given him the ol’ Rachel Dratch,” i.e. balked at casting a, shall we say, unconventionally attractive performer in a prominent lead role, because everyone knows such a thing would cause viewers to immediately change the channel just as soon as they stop compulsively vomiting. Anyone subscribing to that theory will probably see some damning evidence in the just-announced casting of Patton’s replacement: Nick Thune, the singing, guitar-strumming comedian behind viral video hits “Phone Tag,” “Masturbation,” and “Instant Messenger” who (as anyone who’s been to one of his shows can attest) already boasts a considerable female following. Thune will take on the role of the “irresponsible slacker” who inherits a newspaper and hires Matthew Broderick to run it, as well as the burden of being “the guy who stole a job from Patton Oswalt” in comedy circles. The show is being co-produced by Lorne Michaels (who reportedly scouted Thune himself) and Marci Klein (30 Rock, SNL) and it’s created by NewsRadio’s Paul Simms, which means we’ll actually probably really like it once we’ve all gotten lost in Nick Thune’s eyes and totally forgotten about this mess.