Your the A&E network and you want to start competing with the other networks like AMC and FX with their series Mad Men, The Walking Dead, Sons of Anarchy, The Americans and Breaking Bad. But where do you go to find new shows?

Well, if you’re A&E, you might go to one of the masters: Alfred Hitchcock. That’s right, A&E is soon to release a new show that series producer Carlton Cuse describes as “One part Friday Night Lights, one part Lost, [and] one part Twin Peaks.” That show: the Psycho prequel Bates Motel.

Intrigued? We are too. Fortunately, we get to be a bit more than intrigued as the first six minutes of the show have been released by A&E.

Bates Motel stars Freddie Highmore as Norman Bates and Vera Farmiga as his mother and debuts March 18th at 10 PM.

A&E is setting up a new series that will serve as a prequel to Hitchcock’s classic Psycho. The new show, Bates Motel, will attempt to tell the tale of how young Norman went from mama’s boy to psychopathic killer and the show has just cast its Norma Bates.

The news comes from Deadline which is reporting that academy award nominated actress Vera Farmiga is set to take on the role:

[Bates Motel] examines the twisted relationship between serial killer-to-be Norman Bates and his mother Norma. Farmiga will play Norma Louise Bates who is described as passionate, and compelling, a smart, multidimensional character who is always capable of surprising us. The Universal TV-produced Bates Motel has a 10-episode straight-to-series order for a 2013 premiere.

Between Bates Motel and Hannibal, it looks like TV execs are very interested in using the TV format to explore the unexplored pasts of some of cinema’s greatest killers. Hopefully the long form nature of a TV series will provide a better venue to tell these tales as opposed to prequel movies that have thus far been very uninspired.

The good news is A&E does have faith in the show as they already ordered it straight to series with out the need for a pilot. So it will have more of a chance to tell its tale sans the ratings pressure that Hannibal will feel over at NBC.

Keep tuned to The Flickcast for more news from the impending series as it gears toward production.