Tony Shalhoub joins CBS' alien government thriller BrainDead

Emmy winner Tony Shalhoub (Monk) has joined the cast of CBS’s upcoming summer comic-thriller BrainDead, helmed by The Good Wife creators Robert and Michelle King.

Shalhoub’s character Red Wheatus is a veteran Republican senator with a penchant for drinking and deal-making “until a radical transformation turns him into a health-conscious extremist who would rather destroy the government than compromise.”

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Ostensibly, Red’s “radical transformation” is borne from the arrival of alien spawn who have lobbed onto the brains of Capitol Hill’s public-serving men and women and slowly munched away at their brains — to wit, the premise of BrainDead.

Mary Elizabeth Winstead stars as a young politico staffer who stumbles onto the conspiracy; Aaron Tveit (recently of Grease: Live) plays Gareth, another hero and the legislative director of a top senator; Danny Pino and Nikki M. James (The Book of Mormon) also star.

The series is set to debut on CBS in summer 2016.