Review of The Good Wife on CBS

Julianna Margulies' New Drama Convincing but Uncomfortable

Sep 22, 2009

CBS premiered The Good Wife on September 22, 2009. Featuring the wife of an adulterous politician, it is very timely, but is it too timely for viewers?

A corrupt Illinois state's attorney commits adultery with a prostitute and allegedly steals from the state. His wife, a sacrificial homemaker and mother, stands by his side through his painful press conference.

While it may sound like Silda Spitzer, it is Julianna Margulies of ER fame, returning to television as Alicia Florrick, the otherwise good wife who now has to face an ugly world.

Is The Good Wife Too True?

The story of The Good Wife, told mostly from Alicia Florrick's point-of-view, is incredibly convincing. Of course Florrick has to deal with her incarcerated husband and now-broken family, but audiences wince when she also has to see YouTube videos of her husband with a prostitute, hear the rumors at school from her children, and see her own face on the news while her husband's prostitute announces that she is writing a memoir.

Julianna is very convincing as a stressed mother and daughter-in-law. She is charming as a struggling underdog attorney as well, coming across as a well-polished Erin Brockovich. Hopefully her acting skills will help her and not harm her, as looking at the world through her character's point-of-view is painful.

It is painful because men and women alike have seen and cringed at the awkward, most likely fake press conferences that have been "playing in a 24-hour rotation," as Florrick says, over the last few years. Her character exists in the real women seen through true news stories every day.

CBS's New Drama Needs to Proceed with Caution

The show is beautifully cast and has a very complex plot to match its complex heroine. Florrick's home and personal life is complicated enough for its own series, and her work life as a defense attorney requires viewers to pay even closer attention to detail. The result is a streamlined blend of crime and family drama, a combination viewers have loved in the past.

But in the past, those dramas were distant, unreal, and escapist. The sadness Margulies portrays is very real, and very present, in newspapers and on cable. It happens daily to women outside of the spotlight, and often to women inside it. The topic hits close to home on a medium that often attracts viewers who want to detach.

Will Viewers Stay with The Good Wife?

Florrick says in the show's premiere episode, "When I heard about those other scandals, the other wives, I thought, 'How can you allow yourself to be used like that?' And then it happened. And I was...unprepared."

The women, and men, watching The Good Wife might relate to and cheer for Florrick's noble attempt to rebuild her life. But many will no doubt prefer the light-hearted competition airing on the same time slot, if for no other reason than fear that they, too, are unprepared.

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