Oscar winner Octavia Spencer to revive "Murder She Wrote" series

The original run of Murder She Wrote starred Angela Lansbury and ran for 12 seasons plus many TV movies thereafter.

Now it looks like Octavia Spencer's turn to play "novelist/detective." From Entertainment Weekly:

The network confirmed it has ordered a pilot based on the long-running CBS series starring Academy Award-winning The Help actress Octavia Spencer. The new version is described by Deadline, which first reported the news, as a “light, contemporary procedural in the vein of Bones or Fargo, it follows a hospital administrator and amateur sleuth (Spencer) who self-publishes her first mystery novel … [and her] avid fascination with true crime leads her to become an active participant in the investigations.”

The pilot is written by Desperate Housewives writer-producer Alexandra Cunningham.

The procedural crime series is genre that has succeeded for many years, a la Law & Order and currently Castle which bears a similarity to Murder She Wrote only with a male protagonist.

Reviving old ideas doesn't always work though. This season the Raymond Burr series Ironside was brought back and cancelled in weeks. And of course, who can forget the unfortunate Charlie's Angels rehash from a few years ago?

Wishing Octavia success though. Love her!