The ramblings of an unashamed TV addict

I have this idea that there’s a big whiteboard in the writers room of The Good Wife. For the first season it had the word ‘Balance’ at the top followed by a list of all the different fragile balances that were being maintained by the characters – Alicia’s balance between what her family needs and what she wants, Will’s balance between his playfulness and his pride, Carey and Alicia’s balance between sibling like support and professional competition. The writers would look at that board and every plot, every relationship, every moment came from there. The beauty of season 1 was that they managed to do that so subtly that you didn’t realise that it was being written, it all felt perfectly natural and consistent.

Then off the back of their spectacularly successful first season they crossed out balance and wrote ‘Conflict’, then they took each of those balances and poked them, upsetting the equilibriums and pushing the characters and their relationships to breaking point. But the subtlety of season 1 was nowhere to be found, the poking was blatant and artificial, leaving me as a viewer feeling manipulated and unhappily reminded that the writers exist and this is a television show.

Take Kalinda. In season 1 she was walking an interesting line between trying to cling to her privacy while forming an interesting bond with Alicia. This season her privacy was poked at relentlessly by a film-noir-esque cheesy rival until she had some sort of psychotic break and went completely mental. When it was eventually revealed that the big secret was that she slept with Peter, I greeted it with “didn’t we kind of know that already?”. It just seemed so utterly melodramatic and over the top that by the time the reveal was made, anything short of murder seemed disproportionate to the amount of fuss of covering it up.
The conflict between Will and Diane felt equally artificial, the beautiful balancing act from the first season casually thrown away in favour of childish rumour mongering. Likewise I didn’t care about any of Peter’s political manoeuvrings to become State’s Attorney, it all just ended up with me hating all politicians and wondering why anyone would want the job that badly when it seemed to be a miserable job.

That’s not to say the show is bad, it’s still miles better than most other stuff on television, and certainly in a different league from most of the other procedurals. The cases are still interesting and engaging on an emotional level, feeling like they’re about real people, a great contrast to the instantly forgettable and disposable plots other procedurals like CSI wheel out each week. I also continue to love the supporting characters like Eli Gold, it will be interesting to see him working alongside Alicia next season. I also hope to see more of Alicia’s brother, he brings out another side of Alicia, one that has fun and is silly and open.

This is still a great show, I think the writers just made a few miss-steps with the more drawn out plot elements, maybe scared that people would expect a second season to be bigger than the first. Hopefully when they come to look at their white board they’ll chose to head it up with something like ‘Rebalance’ and realise that when you’re THIS good, you really don’t have to try so hard.

Season 2 doesn’t even seem to be available for pre-order on dvd at time of writing, but Amazon has the first season (review) for a very respectable £12.99 (affiliate link)

I loved the pilot of this show and haven’t seen any other pilot to beat it yet. I therefore find it extremely satisfying and relieving that the best pilot of the year turned into one of the best new series of the year too.

What makes the show so good is the combination of a hugely charismatic cast and some beautifully written characters. Each character is realistically complex, constantly struggling to find balance in their lives. Everything seems a compromise for them – it’s all about what you want to do, what you should do, and what you actually have to do.

Julianna Margulies has had to wait a long time since ER for a show worthy of her talent. Last year I struggled to find candidates for Lead Actress plaudits, this year the competition is a lot stronger, but I think The Good Wife is going to win it. I imagine the character of Alicia is a gift to an actor, a really complex character, but one that appears in a procedural drama that while not light-hearted, isn’t so deep as to scare casual viewers away. The writing is wonderful, while she is clearly dealing with a lot of issues, coming at her from everywhere – her colleagues, her clients, her children, her husband – she never comes across as smothered, she still has her own personality and still occasionally manages to do what she wants to do, and have some fun along the way.

Will and Diane, the senior partners at the law firm are played by two of my favourite actors. I adored Josh Charles on Sports Night and he is wonderful here – an extremely likeable, charming, playful and passionate character most of the time, but still capable of anger, pride and underhandedness (he is a lawyer after all). His relationship with his partner, the scene stealing Christine Baranski is perfect, again a fine balance of respect and competition. She has another gift from the writers – a mature, successful female professional who still has problems to deal with, yet again manages to find some fun. She’s the person Alicia could become in 20 years, and they both know it.

The rest of the cast and characters are just as carefully crafted. Peter, the ‘Bad Husband’ (Chris Noth) is deliciously weasely – every time you almost forgive him he does something horrible, and every time you almost write him off, he does something lovely. Alicia’s competition at the law firm, Carey, wants to do good, but also wants to succeed. If Alicia could easily become Diane, Carey could easily become Peter. His relationship with Alicia is fascinating, being forced into a competition with her, while naturally leaning towards treating her more like a big sister. Kalinda the PI is an interesting character mostly because of her mysterious nature. I suspect i she were less secretive about her life, particularly with regard to her sexuality, she would be much less interesting. As it is though the juiciness of someone who can find out anything, about anyone and keeps everything about her own life secret creates a lot of interest.

The plots of each episode are perfectly fine, I enjoyed watching them, but they were often quite predictable. The thing I was least engaged with was the big scandal story, Peter manipulating everyone to get himself out of jail and back into the spotlight – I just didn’t really care. The will-they-won’t-they relationships were all a lot of fun to watch, usually I just find that kind of thing irritating, but thanks to the great chemistry between all of the possible pairings, I really enjoyed them.

This show falls perfectly into a nice little niche. It’s serious, but not too heavy; disposable, but not dull; enjoyable, but not cheesy. It’s a show you can watch proudly without having to psych yourself up to watch something ‘proper’. It’s the kind of show I’d recommend to work colleagues, my dad, my friends, even my grandmother because it’s just so easy and so satisfying to watch. The characters, the writing and everything about the show is all about balance, and it manages it perfectly.