The Good Wife: The New Television Show to Watch

CBS’ New Political and Legal Drama a Hit with 13.7 Million Viewers

Oct 13, 2009

The Good Wife, starring Julianna Margulies, brings CBS a hit with 13.7 million viewers tuning in to see the wronged wife of a former State Attorney rebuild her life.

Alicia Florrick (Julianna Margulies,) the wronged wife of Peter Florrick (Chris Noth,) the former State Attorney of Cook County, is forced to return to work after her husband is jailed in the wake of a sex and political corruption scandal. Alicia must not only start over and return to work after many years out of the legal practice, but she must also deal with the effects of a very public scandal on her family and marriage.

If this sounds familiar, it is because creators Robert and Michelle King loosely borrowed the show’s premise from the Eliot Spitzer story, in which the former New York State Attorney turned Governor resigned over a prostitution scandal.

According to EW.com, The Good Wife is tied with House at the number 10 spot for total viewership – 13.7 people tune in each week to see Alicia battle it out in this courtroom drama.

Alicia Florrick Rebuilds her Life

The first three episodes of the series focused largely on Alicia’s attempts to move past the scandal. She is given a chance to restart her career by an old school law school friend, Will Gardner (Josh Charles), who is now a partner at a prestigious Chicago law firm and who is interested to see how Alicia will handle being back in the courtroom after 13 years. Despite her connections and fame, Alicia must fight it out in an entry-level position against Cary Agos (Matt Czuchry), another junior associate, for the one permanent position at the firm. Alicia ends up working alongside in-house investigator Kalinda Sharma (Archie Panjabi), and under the mentorship of Diane Lockhart (Christine Baranski), a senior partner and litigator at the firm.

While attempting to make her way once more in the legal profession, Alicia must also balance her responsibilities to her children and deal with the emotional toll that the scandal has taken. She must learn to handle her children’s disappointment with the change in their lives and with their father, becoming a single parent while working constantly at the firm. In poignant moment at the end of the pilot, Alicia works up the emotional strength to watch the leaked video of her husband that everyone has seen except her.

As The New York Times noted, the show does a fine job of showing life inside the 24-hour news cycle, as Alicia attempts to go about her day while constantly bombarded by news reports and mockeries of her husband.

The Good Wife is able to move beyond being pigeonholed into a typical procedural legal drama because of its compelling characters, dynamic storylines, and thoughtful exploration of life in the wake of a major scandal. Julianna Margulies plays Alicia Florrick with the intelligence, strength, and grace needed to make the character interesting and also relatable. The show presents legal storylines that are largely focused on the people and the problems, not just hard evidence and lab work, as seen on shows such as CSI. Finally, The Good Wife has begun to introduce elements of mystery to the Peter Florrick storyline, indicating that he may have been framed and that there is a lot more at play.

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