Patton Oswalt is hitting on all cylinders lately, starting as a hilarious stand-up comedian who also appeared in multiple movie and TV comedies. He then went on to voice the culinarily inclined rodent Remy the rat in Disney/Pixar’s Ratatouille before showing off his dramatic chops in the upcoming Big Fan. Now, it’s being reported that Oswalt will add the science fiction genre to his resume, as the actor has joined the cast of Syfy’s Battlestar Galactica prequel series, Caprica.

Though this will be a whole new genre for Oswalt, his character will still be more fitted to his roots. The actor will play Baxter Sarno, who is a humorous talk show host on the planet Caprica. At some point in the show, Daniel Graystone (Eric Stoltz) and Amanda Graystone (Paula Malcomson) will appear on Baxter Sarno’s show — likely to talk about their daughter and the remarkable breakthrough that Graystone has had. No word on exactly how extensive the role will be, but we do know that it will be more than just one episode, which means we’ll probably see Mr. Oswalt on a lot of TVs and billboards in the background.

At first, Caprica was just to be a prequel movie, which was released earlier this year. It was then decided that there was a lot more story to tell there, and the network ordered an entire season instead. The show takes place 58 years before the Battlestar Galactica storyline that we know so well. It follows the Graystone family and the Adama family, who are both trying to cope with a tragedy involving their families.

[Source: THR]