Daniel Radcliffe, our patron saint of child stars turned offbeat indie lords, is ready to get his piece of the Peak TV pie. The actor is teaming up with Saturday Night Live patriarch Lorne Michaels and actor Owen Wilson for a new anthology comedy (like Hansel, anthologies are so hot right now) titled Miracle Workers. The show, which Michaels will executive produce, will air in 2018 on TBS.
For the series, it appears Radcliffe will be trading his wizarding wand and Horns (never forget) for a set of wings. Miracle Workers is a “heaven-set workplace comedy,” per TBS, in which Radcliffe will play a “low level angel” named Craig, shuffling and filing humanity’s prayers for the man upstairs, God, played by Wilson. (Get your “wow” count ready.) God, however, is a little too blissed out on the job, leaving all the work to Craig, who’ll have to perform a massive miracle in order to save the world from its lackadaisical caretaker.
“Having Daniel Radcliffe and Owen Wilson join the TBS family is proof of the continued evolution of this comedy brand as the home of the most creative minds in the business,” said Brett Weitz, executive vice president of original programming for TBS, in a statement.
This won’t be Radcliffe’s first foray into the TV world. He previously starred in the British mini-series adaptation of A Young Doctor’s Notebook, which was received warmly by critics but didn’t get a lot of stateside attention. Miracle Workers is his first step back into the fray since the veritable explosion of Peak TV, where all the shows are anthologies, all the comedies are sad, and all the dramas even sadder.
The series will also be an interesting step forward for TBS, which has long been a home for comedy but has made more experimental choices in the last few years, greenlighting shows like the spoof-heavy Angie Tribeca and the millennial comedy Search Party, a series that veers into thriller territory by the season finale.
Miracle Workers sounds more straightforward, especially considering Michaels’s and Wilson’s involvement—but if there’s anyone who can give it a touch of oddball glory, it’s Radcliffe. The actor’s comedy oeuvre is full of unexpected projects, like the beautifully bizarre indie Swiss Army Man and a cameo as a chain-smoking dog-walker in Trainwreck, in addition to voice work on The Simpsons and Bojack Horseman. Also, because this is as good a time as any to remind people, he was really, really funny playing a raunchy version of himself in Extras in 2006. Let the next chapter in his comedy takeover commence.
