Netflix’s ‘Riverdale’ Companion ‘Sabrina’ Enlists Bronson Pinchot

Netflix’s untitled Sabrina the Teenage Witch series is ready to do the dance of joy.

Bronson Pinchot, aka Balki from Perfect Strangers, has been tapped for a key recurring role in the drama.

Picked up with a two-season, straight-to-series order, the project reimagines the origin and adventures of the comic book character Sabrina the Teenage Witch as a dark coming-of-age tale that traffics in horror, the occult and witchcraft. It is described as in the vein of Rosemary’s Baby and The Exorcist, and finds Sabrina Spellman (Mad Men‘s Kiernan Shipka) wrestling to reconcile her dual nature as a half-witch, half-mortal while fighting the evil forces that threaten her, her family and the daylight world humans inhabit. She is an empowered young woman who is just beginning her dark education as a sorceress, even as she tries to maintain a normal life as a sophomore at Baxter High. Intelligent, compassionate and brave to the point of recklessness, Sabrina is all that stands between us and the forces of darkness that threaten our world.

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Pinchot will recur as George Hawthorne, Baxter High’s villainous, puritanical principal. He is a constant thorn in Sabrina’s side and is always trying to thwart her escapades.

The original Sabrina, The Teenage Witch ran on ABC’s TGIF programming block after Pinchot and Mark Linn-Baker (as Balki’s cousin Larry) wrapped Perfect Strangers’ eight-season run on the block.

Pinchot’s credits also include the Beverly Hills Cop features and True Romance. His most recent TV credit was two episodes of Showtime’s Ray Donovan in 2015. The actor is repped by Innovative, Stone Manners and Bohemia Group.

Riverdale showrunner Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa, who also serves as chief creative officer of Archie Comics, penned the script for the new series. Aguirre-Sacasa will direct the drama and executive produce alongside Riverdale collaborators Greg Berlanti, Sarah Schechter, Archie Comics CEO Jon Goldwater and Lee Toland Krieger. The project hails from Warner Bros. Television-based Berlanti Productions. The cast includes Miranda Otto, Michelle Gomez (Doctor Who), newcomer Chance Perdomo and Jaz Sinclair (Easy, The Vampire Diaries).