The Office's Rainn Wilson will star in a CBS procedural about an unlikable detective who nevertheless gets results

By Sean O'Neal | March 18, 2013 | 5:39pm

Aux Features TV

Though NBC refused to send Dwight Schrute to live on a nice farm upstate, Rainn Wilson has found refuge in another, equally comfortable place where you will probably never visit him: a CBS crime procedural. Wilson has been recruited as the lead in Backstrom, a drama pilot about “an overweight, offensive, irascible cop as he tries and fails to change his self-destructive behavior” that's based on the Swedish series of the same name, which is in turn based on every modern detective story ever told. As with his obvious forebears in House, Cracker, et al., Wilson's Det. Backstrom manages to overcome his misanthropy and despicable personality and still get results.

Meanwhile, we'll discover that, ironically, it’s that very misanthropy and despicable personality that get him those results. Backstrom will also feature former 24 star and reassuring voice of insurance Dennis Haysbert, playing another cop who likely doesn’t appreciate Det. Backstrom’s misanthropy and despicable personality, yet he just can’t argue with those results. "Backstrom, you're overweight, offensive, and irascible—but damn it, etc. etc., you get the gist," Haysbert will say in some form in every episode.