America's Most Wanted revival to be hosted by Elizabeth Vargas

Fox has appointed former ABC News anchor Elizabeth Vargas to succeed John Walsh as the host of the upcoming America’s Most Wanted revival. Entertainment Weekly reports that Vargas, an Emmy-winning journalist and longtime reporter, is set to lead the revival that was first announced a little over a year ago. Set to debut in March on Fox, America’s Most Wanted will follow in the footsteps of its predecessor, inviting viewers to participate in the capture of the eponymous criminals profiled in its episodes. The original series, which ran from 1988 to 2001 (followed by a brief revival on Lifetime in 2012), used reenactments and interviews to tell the stories of some of the country’s most wanted fugitives. Host and creator John Walsh would then ask viewers to call in to a special hotline if they had any information on the suspects featured in the episode; those tips resulted in the apprehension of 1,186 criminals, including 17 from the FBI’s 10 Most Wanted list.

Vargas will host the revival from its new headquarters, where she will speak with various representatives and agents from the FBI, the U.S. Marshals Service, and the Secret Service. The new America’s Most Wanted will “take advantage of advanced crime-fighting technology such as augmented reality and life-size 3-D avatars that will illustrate what suspects might look like now,” which sounds cool and all, but there’s no way it’ll be anywhere near as iconic as the nightmarishly accurate clay bust from the original series that helped capture family annihilator John List.