'Break-Up' co-star scores lead in 'The Thick of It'

ABC's remake of the Britcom "The Thick of It" has found its lead in "The Break-Up" co-star John Michael Higgins.

Another Washington-set comedy at the network, meanwhile, has added Mark Moses ("Desperate Housewives") and Smith Cho to its cast, while over at The CW, Rosa Blasi and Kim Coles have joined separate comedy pilots.

Higgins will play a newly elected and not-very-powerful member of Congress in "The Thick of It," according to The Hollywood Reporter. He joins a cast that also includes Oliver Platt, Michael McKean, Rhea Seehorn and Alex Borstein.

The part will reunite Higgins with "Arrested Development's" Mitch Hurwitz and Richard Day, who cast him in a recurring part on that show and are co-writing "The Thick of It." He's also worked with pilot director Christopher Guest several times in the past, most recently in "For Your Consideration."

Higgins' other credits include the upcoming "Evan Almighty" and a recurring part on "Ally McBeal."

Moses, who plays Paul Young on "Desperate Housewives," will play a Republican senator on the Alphabet's other D.C. comedy, which centers on the romance between the senator's daughter (Michelle Trachtenberg) and a staff member (Eric Christian Olsen) for one of his rivals, played by Wendie Malick. Cho ("Emily's Reasons Why Not") will play the best friend of Trachtenberg's character.

At The CW, Blasi (Lifetime's "Strong Medicine") has taken a part in the comedy "Eight Days a Week," about the lives of four young assistants in New York. She'll play one of their bosses, an A-list publicist.

Former "Living Single" star Coles has been cast as an angel in the comedy "Hell on Earth," about a snotty girl who, after being hit by a bus and sent to purgatory, is given a second chance at life.