Showtime Orders Duchovny Comedy for Summer

Agent Mulder is returning to television.

Showtime has ordered 12 episodes of a still untitled series (formerly known as Californication) with former X-Files star David Duchovny playing divorced writer Hank Moody who tries to juggle his relationship with his daughter, his feelings for his ex, and certain, well, proclivities that come to light during the pilot episode.

Series also stars Natascha McElhone, Evan Handler, Madeleine Martin, and Madeline Zima.

The project, which will be produced by Showtime, was written by Tom Kapinos (Dawson's Creek) and directed by Stephen Hopkins (24); they'll executive produce the series with David Duchovny.

The dark half-hour comedy will most likely be paired with the third season of Weeds for a late summer launch.

The series pickup likely means that fellow Showtime comedy pilots Manchild and Insatiable will not be ordered to series.

Having read the script for the untitled Duchovny series last year, I definitely thought it was the strongest contender of the three Showtime comedy pilots and I am extremely excited to see where they take the characters and the storyline.

I won't spoil anything right now but I will say that this is a darker role than we've seen Duchovny in and Hank Moody has a lot of issues. Making this series the ideal companion for Weeds.