Laurie Metcalf will star in the Lifetime drama, The Virgin of Akron, Ohio.

It revolves around a model who returns home to Ohio and her dysfunctional family before surviving a brutal car crash; Variety adds it leads townspeople to believe she was sent from G-d. Metcalf will play Lydia, the girl's mother. Fox TV Studios is behind the project.

In other TV news, John Pasquin has signed on to direct the comedy, Playing Chicken from Warner Bros. TV and Werner-Gold-Miller; no details were provided on the plot.