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Hot off the heels of Julianna Margulies’ win at the Golden Globes® Channel 4 sees the premiere of The Good Wife. Given that it has been getting fantastic reviews stateside, will this translate to success on this side of the pond?
As shows go The Good Wife is an amalgamation of three very prominent genres that are being showcased on American TV. The first is the legal series, like Law & Order and Murder One, with Alicia (Margulies) being introduced as the new candidate law-associate with her taking on a different trial every week as to further progress the storyline. The second of these is the political series, such as The West Wing, with her background as the disgraced wife of her corrupt politician husband (Chris Noth) who is now in prison after charges of prostitution and embezzlement were laid against him. Finally there is the now common ‘woman starting over’ formula which found prominence in Weeds, as well as the poorly executed Cougar Town.
With so many yarns being interweaved here it is to the credit of both the actors and writers that they have managed to combine these so skillfully to produce such a polished and thoroughly engaging show. The first episode sets the scene for the series that is to follow with Alicia Florrick finding her feet in a law firm as the stigma of being a ‘good wife’ (a term meaning that no matter how bad the scandal got she always stood by her husband). Through this stigma the political undercurrent of the show is rendered apparent for there are already many hints that not all is as it seems regarding the arrest of her husband, former State Attorney Peter Florrick. This, along with the Alicia’s continuous trials to support her family and find emancipation forms compulsive viewing that has plenty of places to go as the season unfolds.
The star of this show is obviously Julianna Margulies (known mostly for her role of Nurse Hathaway in E.R.) who throughout performs a star turn. Even her the first three silent minutes onscreen are fantastically executed with her ability to confer such inner pain as would be expected when such a scandal hits home. The rest of the ensemble (praise going in particular to Christine Baranski and Archie Panjabi) are also able to perform so well that they can showcase themselves perfectly whilst not detracting from the show's true star.
With a short season of 12 episodes this show will emerge very quickly and acts as a good contrast to UK network-mate Glee and, as soon as it truly finds its feet, a true adversary towards critical-darling Mad Men.
The Good Wife is on every Monday at 10pm on Channel 4
Correction: They extended the season to 23 episodes... 
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