Is there a more iconic crime-fighting duo than Christine Cagney and Mary Beth Lacey, the NYPD detectives who took down bad guys in the ’80s while wearing tie-neck blouses and sensible shoes? Maybe, but CBS still wants to bring them back for all-new adventures, ordering a Cagney & Lacey reboot to pair with its reimagining of Magnum P.I. (is there a more iconic mustache?).
Now Deadline reports the network has announced who will take over for Sharon Gless and Tyne Daly. Grey’s Anatomy alum Sarah Drew will play Cagney, who was the career-focused single woman to Lacey’s working mom in the original series, which ran from 1982 to 1988. Michelle Hurd, late of the Hawaii Five-0 and Lethal Weapon reboots, has been cast as Lacey, who will be the “more experienced partner.” The new series will be set in Los Angeles, where Cagney and Lacey will have more of a mentor-mentee relationship. According to the new character descriptions, Drew’s Cagney will be the “nimble and easygoing partner and protégée” of Hurd’s Lacey, who is “empathetic and straightforward… athletic, polished, a former high school track and field champion,” in case those are things you needed to know about a member of the LAPD.
Hurd kicked off her TV cop career on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit after playing district attorneys on New York Undercover and The Practice. Drew, who once guest-starred on SVU, has set up her own practice as small-screen medical professionals, recurring on Private Practice and Grey’s Anatomy before landing a regular spot in the cast of the latter. She’s now set to exit Grey’s along with Jessica Capshaw later this season.