Year:  2009, 2010
Genre:  TV series, Lawyer, Drama
Country:  United States
Languages:  English
Starring:  Julianna Margulies, Archie Panjabi, Chris Noth, Matt Czuchry, Christine Baranski, Graham Phillips, Makenzie Vega, Josh Charles
Guest stars:  Alan Cumming, Mary Beth Peil, Titus Welliver, Martha Plimpton
Eye candy:  Margulies, Panjabi, Emily Bergl
Creators:  Robert King, Michelle King
Producers:  Tony Scott, Ridley Scott
DVD distributor:  Paramount Home Entertainment

     Much like The Guardian, The Good Wife is a legal drama pretending to be something else.  The premise of the show is that Alicia Florrick (Julianna Margulies) has just discovered that her husband Peter Florrick (Chris Noth) has been having a number of illicit sexual encounters with hookers.  Peter is a Chicago state’s attorney whose political career is derailed by the scandal.  When the show opens, he is in prison thanks to some possibly shady business dealings he had while in office.

     There are ample reasons why a show like this could succeed.  First of all, it’s going to be topical, since every few months another prominent politician gets caught Hiking The Appalachian Trail in Argentina with his mistress or paying three grand an hour for some hooker.  And we hear about it all – Spitzer, Sanford, Clinton, Edwards, Mark Souder, John Ensign…the list goes on and on.  The media often speculates about the wives who almost inexplicably stand by their men during these scandals.

     The Good Wife takes place in Chicago – no shortage of political scandal in Chicago (look only to Rod Blagojevich, most recently).  Alicia is a lawyer (as are Hilary Clinton and Elizabeth Edwards).  The comparisons could go on and on.  But this is just the “premise” of the show, and has little to do with the show itself, at least at first.  (Stay tuned for a spinoff where, instead of hookers, the politician gets caught having gay sex a la Larry Craig, Mark Foley, Eric Massa, etc…)

     At any rate, the political scandal and the whole “how-is-she-handling-it” thing wear off pretty quickly, as the show jumps right into the legal drama.  Alicia, a lawyer before she got married and had kids, goes back to work to make ends meet.  She gets hired on a trial basis by a big legal firm, and from there this is a pretty standard legal drama.  Her clients are always virtuous and right, she always finds the one key piece of evidence that will prove them to be virtuous and right, and she always wins the day.  She’s like a really hot version of Matlock.

     In the meantime, we are constantly reminded that Her Husband Is In Jail.  He appears in every episode.  Everyone Alicia meets mentions her husband.  The current state’s attorney (Titus Welliver) has a vendetta against her and her whole family, and she hate him for exposing her family to the public scandal.  Toward the end of the first season, the focus moves back to Peter and his political career, but only after establishing Alicia’s bonafides as a lawyer, in a very traditional lawyer drama show.

     That being said, this is a very good traditional lawyer drama show.  Margulies is magnificent, even when she has to pay lip service to the political scandal part of the script.  The other lawyers at her firm are terrific (especially the always caustic Christine Baranski as one of the senior partners).  And the best character on the series is Kalinda (the gorgeous Archie Panjabi), the firm’s abrasive, blunt investigator who has a terrific relationship with Alicia.

     The cast, and some good writing, elevate this series above the standard lawyer drama fare we get on TV so often.  The constant references to the mostly-irrelevant husband become irritating, but the continuation of that story makes the first season compelling, and made me want to watch one episode after another.  That’s the best kind of TV series to get on DVD, one where you want to watch the entire thing.  And that’s what you get with The Good Wife Season One, out September 14th from Paramount Home Entertainment.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 14th, 2010 at 7:37 am and is filed under 2009, 2010, Drama, Lawyer, TV series. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.