It’s a real good news/bad news situation for fans of Poker Face — the bad news being that Peacock has canceled the Columbo-inspired mystery series starring Natasha Lyonne after two seasons. The good news is that creator Rian Johnson has a wild plan for keeping the show alive: Replace Lyonne with Peter Dinklage as the series’s “human lie detector” for not just Season 3, but Season 4 too.
According to Deadline, the Knives Out director is shopping a rebooted version of the show to other networks for a two-season commitment, with the Emmy-winning Game of Thrones star taking over the role of Charlie Cale.
In a statement to Deadline, Johnson and Lyonne (who would remain with the show as an executive producer) said “We’ve been germinating this next move together since writing the Season 2 finale. We love our Poker Face and this is the perfect way to keep it rolling. Give us a beat and we may just see Charlie Cale again down that open highway.”
Recasting a major lead character like this has happened plenty of times in television history, though this feels like the only potential scenario that would ever lead to Dinklage replacing Lyonne in a role. (That said, imagining Dinklage as Ben Grimm’s love interest in the next Fantastic Four movie is an amusing thought.)
