After ‘Breaking Bad’ And ‘Better Call Saul,’ Bob Odenkirk Has Found His Next Show On AMC

It took Bryan Cranston seven years before he agreed to star in another TV show (Showtime’s Your Honor) after Breaking Bad. Better Call Saul star Bob Odenkirk isn’t waiting that long. The multi-time Emmy nominee is attached to lead the AMC series Straight Man, based on Richard Russo’s novel of the same name. “It is described a mid-life crisis tale set at Railton College, told in the first person by William Henry Devereaux, Jr. (Odenkirk), the unlikely chairman of the English department in a badly underfunded college in the Pennsylvania rust belt,” according to Variety.

“I loved [co-showrunners Aaron Zelman and Paul Lieberstein’s] take on Richard’s excellent, entertaining novel,” Odenkirk said in a statement. “Once again a project with AMC with a focus on character depth and sensitivity. This milieu (academia) seems very pertinent to the conversations we’re all having.  I am drawn to the tone of humanity and humor in the novel and I look forward to playing this role, something lighter than my recent projects but still closely observed and smart.”

I will now spend the next 15 minutes wondering how Odenkirk said the word “milieu.”

Straight Man — which is Odenkirk’s third show on AMC, because triples is best — does not have a premiere date, but it is “being fast-tracked in development” ahead of the final season of Better Call Saul, which premieres on April 18.