Hulu Fixed Their Justin Roiland Problem By Making His ‘Solar Opposites’ Character British

If only every high-profile firing in Hollywood could end with a Downton Abbey cast member taking up the mantle of a disgraced actor – who wouldn’t love watching Dame Maggie Smith in The Mandalorian?

Back in January, both Hulu and Adult Swim cut ties with controversial writer, animator and voice actor Justin Roiland following news that he faced domestic violence charges in Orange County, California. The OC District Attorney would later drop the charges due “insufficient evidence,” but the reports that leaked following the highly publicized scandal painted the picture of a fractured-to-nonexistent working relationship between Roiland and, well, pretty much everyone at Rick and Morty and Solar Opposites for years before the domestic violence case. Since Roiland had reportedly ceded all creative control on both shows and relegated himself entirely recording his voice parts from his home studio, the only creative difficulty his departure posed to the two projects was the task of finding his replacement – enter Dan Stevens.

The Downton Abbey star and actor behind the Beast in the live-action Beauty and the Beast film has officially filled the role of the grouchy alien scientist Korvo on Solar Opposites, as revealed in the Season Four trailer released by Hulu yesterday afternoon:

Stevens’ stepping-up marks an advancement in his relationship with both 20th Television Animation, for whom he appeared in the animated Apple comedy Central Park, and Hulu, where he appeared in the Kumail Nanjiani-led miniseries Welcome to Chippendales.

We’ll see if the awkward draw-attention-to-it-but-don’t-directly-address-it approach to the recasting casts a shadow over the rest of Solar Opposites when Hulu releases the full 11-episode season on August 14.