Dawson’s Creek diehards, prepare to explode: Vulture hears that Mr. James Van Der Beek is joining the cast of ABC’s buzzworthy comedy pilot Don’t Trust the Bitch in Apt. 23. The name of his character? James Van Der Beek.
Our spies say TV’s Dawson will play a heightened version of himself, much the way Neil Patrick Harris has created his own alter ego in the Harold and Kumar franchise (and Matt LeBlanc has done recently on Episodes). In the Bitch pilot, Van Der Beek will serve as the best friend to Chloe (a.k.a. “the bitchâ€). Earlier this month, Krysten Ritter (Gilmore Girls) landed the Chloe role; Dreama Walker (The Good Wife) is set to play Chloe’s naive new roommate. Bitch creator Nahnatchka Khan has always envisioned a role for a celebrity in her show: The first draft of the script actually had a character named Lance Bass. We hear there were some conversations about actually having Bass in the show, but the idea of having a well-known TV personality like Van Der Beek ultimately worked out best. Bitch is one of the hottest comedy pilots around TV land this year, and not just because of its (likely to be changed) title: Vulture has heard from a slew of agents and rival network execs who’ve declared the show one of the funniest half-hour scripts in years.