NBC orders Charles Manson drama series

David Duchovny returns to the crime drama genre with NBC's Aquarius.

NBC has ordered the new show Aquarius, a 13-episode series about an undercover cop who works to track down Charles Manson and the Manson Family.  Aquarius will star Duchovny, who will be available with the final season of Californication airing next month.

The show, set in the 1960's, will follow Duchovny as a Los Angeles police sergeant who has a complicated love life and begins following Manson's crimes.  The notorious cult leader will have just begun his search for women who he can recruit to join his 'cause.'

According to Deadline, NBC Entertainment president Jennifer Salke said, "Event series are a big priority for us, and the combination of a show that charts the lead-up to the Manson murders, along with a television star of the magnitude of David Duchovny, is the very definition of an event."

The Aquarius series announcement comes after Fox's television series announcement of its own Manson-based production.  TIME reported Bret Easton Ellis and Rob Zombie are working together on the Fox show, a mini-series based on "dramatizing stories drawn from the historical record."

NBC Entertainment chairman Bob Greenblatt rang Duchovny's praises when interviewed about the project.  Greenblatt said, "After being involved in the production of both The X-Files and Californication, it gives me great pleasure to work with David Duchovny for the third time on this compelling drama."