Fall TV Preview

SYNOPSIS

Pushing aside the betrayal and crushing public humiliation caused by her husband Peter (Chris Noth), Alicia Florrick (Margulies) starts over by pursuing her original career as a defense attorney. As a junior associate at a prestigious Chicago law firm, she joins her longtime friend, former law school classmate and firm partner Will Gardner (Josh Charles), who is interested to see how Alicia will perform after 13 years out of the courtroom. Alicia is grateful the firm's top litigator, Diane Lockhart (Christine Baranski), offers to mentor her but discovers the offer has conditions and realizes she's going to need to succeed on her own merit. Alicia's main competition among the firm's 20-something new recruits is Cary (Matt Czuchry), a recent Harvard grad who is affable on the surface, but will use any means to ensure that he, not Alicia, secures the one full-time associate position that's available. Fortunately, Alicia finds an ally in Kalinda (Archie Panjabi), the firm's tough in-house investigator. Gaining confidence every day, Alicia transforms herself from embarrassed politician's scorned wife to resilient career woman, especially for the sake of providing a stable home for her children, 14-year-old Zach (Graham Phillips) and 13-year-old Grace (Makenzie Vega). For the first time in years, Alicia trades in her identity as the "good wife" and takes charge of her own destiny. Tony Scott, Ridley Scott, Robert King, Michelle King, Dee Johnson and David Zucker are the executive producers for CBS Television Studios.

IMAGE GALLERY & VIDEO PREIVEWS

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REVIEWS

Please note that these reviews may contain spoilers.

Randi Dertzo's Take
I really enjoyed this pilot. I loved Julianna Margulies back in ER and was excited to see what she had in store for us with this show. You see that there's a lot of buried feelings brewing inside her character. She's trying to turn the page and move back to a career she abandoned years ago. I'm sure there will be some very interesting character development in this one and I can't wait to see what's next.
Rating: There's a great future for this show!
About Randi Dertzo I'm the founder of this website and I also owns ChannelCanada.com and Viewers.ca, a discussion forum about television in Canada.

Gordon McDougall's Take
Here's a show that couldn't be timelier. How many times in the past few years have we seen the scurrilous politician step up to a podium with a dutiful wife by his side, as he tells the world, "I have sinned against you, my dear electorate" (or words to that effect). This show--in full dramatic fashion--takes us "backstage" after the humiliating news conference and lets us hear the sharp, crackling slap "Good Wife" Julianna Margulies delivers so satisfyingly to her cheating husband Chris Noth. Margulies plays Alicia Florrick, six months later. She's returning to her career (from a dozen years ago) as a lawyer. The good news is she's got a winning supporting cast around her, including Christine Baranski (finally, in a role deserving of her talents) and Matt Czuchry (whom many will remember as Rory's boyfriend, Logan, on Gilmore Girls). The bad news (from her point of view) is she's a dozen years older in a profession where youth is held in higher regard, and she is carrying around a lot of baggage, what with being the wife of a disgraced-and-now-imprisoned politician, and all. Then again, the added good news (from the viewer's point of view) is the baggage she carries on this show isn't as dark and depressing as the baggage she had on her last series--where she also played a lawyer--Canterbury's Law. When Alicia visits Peter in prison, he tries to reassure her that he could get out on appeal and things could go back to normal, to which she replies, "Peter. It's never going back to normal." As she walks away from him, there's an odd look of satisfaction on her face. Despite all of the public humiliation she has endured and is enduring, we get the feeling she kind of likes the idea of a "new normal". TV Gord's Verdict: This show stands a good chance of survival on its own, with its winning cast (especially Margulies' built-in fanbase). It also follows the suddenly-hot two-hour block of NCIS shows, and its competition is essentially untried (The Forgotten on ABC and The Jay Leno Show on NBC). Also, fans nostalgic for "e.r." who always wanted Carol Hathaway back might be inclined to give this show a fair trial.
About Gordon McDougall TVGord is a radio host at 580 CFRA in Ottawa. He does a weekly segment about TV every friday which you can hear in MP3 in the '580 CFRA Interviews' section of their website, www.cfra.com