CBS is finally giving The Good Wife spinoff The Good Fight a fighting chance on network TV. At least for one season.
This summer, CBS is airing a network-approved -- i.e. bleeped out swears -- version of The Good Fight Season 1, which streamed 10 episodes on CBS All Access. The broadcast will start Sunday, June 16, and the first four episodes will air within the 2019 Emmy nomination voting window that closes on June 24.
That should give the show a better chance at Emmy attention. In a just world, Christine Baranski would be a lock for a nod as Diane Lockhart, the character she reprised from The Good Wife, but Delroy Lindo would also be a frontrunner as attorney Adrian Boseman.
The Good Fight was the first original series to launch on CBS All Access and recently streamed all of Season 3. So this is a way for new fans to get hooked on the show and hopefully -- from the network's perspective -- get them to subscribe to CBS All Access to keep going.
The Good Wife was a huge hit for CBS for seven seasons, so if this network airing of The Good Fight Season 1 can capture some of the fans who loved that show and get them to consider at least a trial run of CBS All Access to watch the story continue, this will be a huge success. There's also the potential of Emmy wins. And it also fills a nice spot on the summer schedule for CBS.
Here's the start of The Good Fight Season 1 schedule, with episodes airing back-to-back on CBS for the first two weeks, before the timeslot changes:
Sunday, June 169:00-11:00 p.m. - The Good Fight Episodes 1 and 2Sunday, June 239:00-11:00 p.m. - The Good Fight Episodes 3 and 4Sunday, June 308:00-9:00 p.m. - Big Brother (Sunday season premiere)9:00-10:00 p.m. - Instinct Season 2 premiere10:00-11:00 p.m. - The Good Fight Episode 5
The Good Fight will remain in that Sunday at 10 p.m. time period until the 10-episode season endson Sunday, August 4.
The Good Fight picks up one year after the slap-happy events of The Good Wife finale. Game of Thrones and Downton Abbey alum Rose Leslie plays young lawyer Maia Rindell, who is swept up in her parents' financial scam, which has also wiped out the savings of Maia's godmother, Diane Lockhart (Christine Baranski). Forced out of Lockhart and Lee, Diane and Maia join The Good Wife alum Lucca Quinn (Cush Jumbo) at one of Chicago’s pre-eminent African American-owned law firms, Reddick, Boseman & Kolstad.
Several The Good Wife stars also joined The Good Fight, including Sarah Steele as the amazing assistant Marissa Gold, plus Gary Cole as Diane's estranged husband Kurt McVeigh, Carrie Preston as wonderfully quirky attorney Elsbeth Tascioni, Dylan Baker as psychotic Colin Sweeney, Zach Grenier as David Lee, Michael Boatman as Julius Cain, and more small crossover roles, including some judges.
New additions include the great Delroy Lindo as Adrian Boseman, plus Bernadette Peters as Maia's mother Lenore Rindell, Paul Guilfoyle as her father Henry Rindell, Justin Bartha as Lucca's rival/lover Colin Morrello, and Nyambi Nyambi as investigator Jay Dipersia.
I have to say, as a fan of The Good Wife, I was hopeful for The Good Fight but not sure if the streaming service show would keep my interest without characters like Alicia Florrick (Julianna Margulies), Cary Agos (Matt Czuchry), Kalinda Sharma (Archie Panjabi), Eli Gold (Alan Cumming), or the dearly departed Will Gardner (Josh Charles). But I quickly got hooked on The Good Fight, which used its non-network status to make very bold story decisions. It'll be interesting to see how that plays on network TV, and see how many viewers tune in for the, um, more sanitized version.
The first episode of The Good Fight got an over-the-air launch on CBS on February 19, 2017 and drew 7.17 million viewers. CBS All Access did something similar with Star Trek: Discovery, premiering on CBS before moving the show to the subscription streaming service.
The Good Fight tried to get Julianna Margulies back for an arc in Season 3, but that fell apart. I'm a little disappointed CBS didn't invest some money in her return for CBS All Access, and then advertise it as a big event, The Return of Alicia Florrick. They could've aired an ad for her Season 3 return during this Season 1 run on CBS.
CBS All Access is upping its profile to compete with Netflix, Amazon, Hulu, and -- very soon -- Disney+. Check out the streamer's options and sign up for a free trial, if you care to.
