Don't try to charm me, kiddo.
In the promos for The Good Wife, Alicia Florrick (Julianna Margulies) stands stoically beside her slimy politician husband, Peter (Chris Noth), as he resigns from office. After his speech, he tries to talk to her -- but gets slapped in the face instead. It's a jarring crossover image -- Nurse Hathaway slapping Mr. Big -- but it tells you everything you need to know about the show. The Good Wife is bittersweet and triumphant -- and it's going to be a hit.
Margulies and Noth's chemistry on the show is non-existent, and that's exactly how it's supposed to be: Noth's character Peter has been caught in a sex scandal and Margulies is the Hillary, the Elizabeth, the faithful and blind-sighted wife who stays with him. There is no longer any love between them; this brutal honesty sets the show apart from its sexual tension-filled peers. Likewise, Margulies's character Alicia sets herself apart from other "good wives" by refusing to play the helpless wife and going back to work as a lawyer.
"[The show] is based on several people," Margulies said in an interview with TV.com. "It's not based on one exact character." That's also why it's set in Chicago: "We didn't want to make it New York, because it's not about Silda and Eliot Spitzer," Margulies said. "We didn't want to make it D.C., because it's not about Bill and Hillary Clinton. We didn't want to make it New Jersey because it's not about the McGreevys. I think, ultimately, Chicago felt like it was conflict-free!"
Margulies got her big break on ER, and Noth found fame on Sex and the City and Law and Order -- but they're not the only big names on the show. The prolific Christine Baranski plays Diane Lockhart, Alicia's boss at her new job. Matt Czuchry (yep, Logan Huntzberger!) is Cary Agos, Alicia's cutthroat young colleague. And Archie Panjabi plays Kalinda Sharma, another sassy twentysomething who helps Alicia get back into her groove at the firm.
America is fascinated by scandal -- and The Good Wife weaves a legal procedural and a scandalous drama into one seamless show. We're able to see how the media pressures a family in the aftermath of political scandal, and what one woman does to combat the pain.
The Good Wife premieres Tuesday, September 22 at 10 pm on CBS.
Comments (10)
I just love the propaganda for the universal health care/global warming/socialized/nationalized state built carefully into the show.
The pilot was pretty good, we will see if it stays that way.
This sounds good. I think Julianna Margulies would do stoic very well.
Certainly looks interesting, we'll see if it stays that way.
The problem with political scandal is that it's not as scandalous and juicy and magnetic in a drama as it is in real life. This show better have something for viewers to hook on to, feel invested in, otherwise it won't last.
So was last year's Canterbury's Law and we all saw how fast that folded.
It is?
Looking forward to it !! :D
plan on taking a look
I will see it soon... i think...
XO XO
:):):):)