NBC takes to the high seas

Hugh Laurie (best known as the star of House, but he'll always be Bertie Wooster to me) has signed on to play Edward Teach—a.k.a. the famous pirate Blackbeard—in NBC's Crossbones, an upcoming 10-episode drama based on Colin Woodard's nonfiction book The Republic of Pirates.

I'm not sure how much of Teach's life this series is going to cover, but, um, spoiler: he came to a bad end. I don't want to see Bertie Wooster's head hanging from the bowsprit of a ship, so I think I'll be skipping this one.