Telly Thursday: The Good Wife Knows How to Please
January 28th, 2010
posted by Padraig Moran
After Conan O’Brien’s high profile exit from NBC last week, and the media circus that went with it, the network in question has been scrabbling to save face in any way possible. In a U-turn on their recent programming policies, they’ve declared their intent to plug up the gaping Coco-shaped hole in their schedule by commissioning an abundance of original scripted content. The jobs and cash this means to American comedy and drama shows such as Law and Order: SVU and the struggling Parks and Recreation is certainly no small change, but in the cut throat world of US network television, critics and execs alike were quick to hop all over the statement. Too little, they scoffed and tweeted, too late.
While these death knells might be premature, it is true that NBC could learn a lot from the performance of their competitors, in particular CBS, who have turned their fortunes around in the last few years by repeatedly putting their faith in the development of scripted drama. After cleaning up stateside, a lot of these slow burners are now starting to trickle across the Atlantic airwaves to a European audience, with the latest arrival in the form of The Good Wife, which debuted on Channel Four this week.
Starring Julianna Margulies (ER, Scrubs), the plots revolves around Alicia Florrick, the wife of a recently incarcerated State Attorney (Chris Noth), awaiting trial for charges on a sex and corruption scandal. Reeling at the revelations of her philandering husband (in particular the Youtube clips of him “sucking on the toes of a hooker”), Alicia is forced to resume her cut-short career as a litigator to provide for herself and her children. Deciding to stick by her jailbird spouse in the process, The Good Wife charts Alicia’s progress, moving from little more then a domestic and political adjunct to a player in her own right.
Getting straight down to business, the well paced and (for the most part) well written pilot kicks off as a worthy rival to shows like Law and Order. You get the same pared back approach, though with early hints at higher levels of character and thematic sophistication. Margulies’ Alicia has already proven to be a Golden Globe and SAG winning performance, and is instantly likeable in her capacity as the put-upon good gal, even if some audiences are likely to question her personal motives and decisions. To facilitate this cynicism, we have private eye/sidekick Kalinda Sharma (Archie Panjabi), a refreshingly entertaining foil to Alicia’s woes, who is also direct enough to call her out on her choices. This not only grants the viewer greater insight, but thankfully does so while avoiding the recent ubiquity of schmaltzy voice-overs and inflated inner monologues that have consumed the American prime time. Episode one of The Good Wife has also thrown up several other major players for the coming series, all of whom already seem well realized and busting at the seams with subplot potential. That said, there’s an element of déjà vu about some of the story lines here, as well as some clunky dialogue in the scenes where it really counts. Given the overall quality though, you can probably put this down to opening night jitters, and give the show a chance to find its stride. If the consistent US viewing figures are anything to go by, it looks like the good faith may pay off.
What’s interesting about The Good Wife though, is the delicate balance it’s striking in terms of its genre and gender games. It’s a legal drama, where each week a stand alone episode centers on a particular case and crime that Alicia Florrick, Litigator is grappling with. However, it’s also a family drama, where the real action is taking place outside the courtroom and evolves over the entire series. This balance between the stand-alone episodic approach, and that of the arcing mythology is a challenge for many TV shows, but The Good Wife faces particular problems because of the ingredients of its chosen mash-up and the deployment of a female lead.
Strong female roles (in case you’ve never heard an Oscar acceptance speech) aren’t all that common, particularly for prime time TV drama. The Good Wife however, has them in spades; especially in Margulies’ lead casting. Unjustly though, shows with female leads tend to become marketed as shows designed solely for females, through many a network’s misguided attempts to capitalize on demographics. The Good Wife refuses this tactic outright, preferring to strike a delicate balance between those conflicting aspects of its genre that could fall prey to reductionist marketing tactics.
While the familial and domestic plot-lines of the show are indeed worthy enough for the spotlight, producers have opted to allow them to develop in the background, as a story within a story, where the weekly courtroom action is foregrounded. It’s a device that works well, allowing Alicia’s personal turmoil to speak for itself, and relying on the emotional intelligence of the viewer to read between the lines. The final scene of the pilot is a case in point, as Alicia listens to a voicemail from her erstwhile husband. Without giving anything away, it’s a loaded message that resonates on the show’s many emotive and thematic levels, from the hard facts of her husband’s trial, to their past together and Alicia’s burgeoning path towards independence.
If your TV tastes are more Top Gear than Tess of the D’Ubervilles, then the complicated emotional impact of the brief scene might not float your boat, but The Good Wife’s refusal to gender-fence itself off is successful enough that you won’t turn off the screen in some Gilmore Girls-esque bout of nausea. It’s a thin line, but one excellently tread, and whether you originally come for the courtroom intrigue or the woman fighting to have her worth recognized, The Good Wife is sure to have you tuning in for more.
The Good Wife runs Mondays on Channel Four at 10pm, catch up online at www.channel4.com/4od
Tags: Channel Four, Julianna Margulies, telly thursday, The Good Wife
