CBS’s Cagney & Lacey Reboot casts its leads!!
According to Deadline, Grey’s Anatomy star Sarah Drew will be playing Christine Cagney whilst Blindspot alum Michelle Hurd will be playing Mary Beth Lacey. Drew will play Lacey’s protege, a former track and field star who acts as a more easygoing counterpoint to Hurd’s empathetic and straightforward Lacey. The series will move from New York City to Los Angeles, with the pilot being written by Bridget Carpenter and directed by Rosemary Rodriguez (The Walking Dead).
Bridget Carpenter recently worked as consulting producer on HBO’s Westworld and previously produced and wrote shows like Friday Night Lights and Parenthood.
She also developed the amazing Hulu series 11.22.63 <3 Franco.
Drew’s announcement that she’d exit Grey’s Anatomy at the end of its current 14th season met with strong fan backlash. The actress played Dr April Kepner for nine seasons beginning as a recurring character in season 6.
Hurd’s credits make her no stranger to shows with strong fan following. The actress starred as the villainous Shepherd in Blindspot’s second season. Her character took the show in a new and exciting direction. According to our resident Blindspot expert Clare, her character was a game changer. “Shepherd’s machinations were the unseen hand in season 1, but her arrival in season 2 really upped the ante”. Her other credits include Fox’s Lethal Weapon, Netflix’s Daredevil and Starz’s Ash vs Evil Dead.
Will the reboot surpass the original?
The original Cagney & Lacey ran on CBS from March 1982 to May 1988….wow I feel old. Primarily this was a “police procedural” show, but the show was notable because it focused on two women which was revolutionary for the era with similar shows only following male police officers. The original series centered on Cagney, a career orientated single woman and Lacey, a working single mother. The series’ lead actresses won Emmys for six consecutive years with Tyne Daly winning four times and Sharon Gless winning twice.
The trend of reboots has taken Hollywood by storm with every network capitalizing on its previous backlog of creative properties. We recently reported that The CW had cast their Charmed reboot and theres also progress on other PI reboots. The race to find a new intellectual property to draw in crowds on major nights has met with mixed results. Its easy to assume that rebootageddon might go too far and leave new unique stories without an outlet. Only time will tell whether a reboot of Cagney and Lacey will pay off.
