Exclusive: Christina Applegate is set to topline and executive produce Dead to Me, Netflix’s half-hour dark comedy series from writer Liz Feldman, Will Ferrell and Adam McKay’s Gloria Sanchez Prods. and CBS TV Studios.

This is a coup for Netflix and the producers as Applegate, a perennial top choice for TV casting directors, is offered multiple TV series and pilots every year but has been very selective. This marks her first TV series in six years.

Written by Feldman, Dead to Me, which has a 10-episode straight-to-series order, has been described as a comedic Big Little Lies. It is about a powerful friendship that blossoms between a tightly wound widow (Applegate) and a free spirit with a shocking secret.

Applegate will play Jen, a poised and put-together woman with a dark sense of humor and an anger problem that she doesn’t necessarily want to deal with.