As sharp as her killer heels, this wife isn’t just good, she’s superb
Oh, bliss. The Good Wife (More4) is back, savagely witty as ever. if you like your TV drama diamond-hard and dressed to kill in needlesharp stilettos, there’s nothing better.
Never mind that it’s buried under a stack of other Freeview stations, on a channel that usually hosts ancient episodes of Come Dine With Me and Embarrassing bodies. You can’t judge a show by the company it keeps.
imagine a hybrid of silent Witness and Yes Minister, with powerful women battling evil while the men bicker and squabble over trivia. The Good Wife combines all that with breakneck courtroom scenes and a self-contained story each week.
Fans feared the series would be past its best following the departure of its coolest, most capable character — Kalinda, the private detective dodging drugs-gang hitmen while seducing lesbian Fbi agents.
but the new season kicked off with swaggering confidence, in a sequence that was almost like television ballet: Chicago cops kicked down doors and arrested bad guys, to the pounding beat of Dublin soul band The hothouse Flowers.
The intro finished with a spectacular flourish, as neon lights snapped on across an empty office in time to the music — and then we were plunged into a chaotic courtroom.
This was the barn, where a frazzled judge heard a hundred cases a day and prison inmates were crowded into a Perspex pen.
into this bedlam walked Alicia Florrick, played by Julianna Margulies, whose angular face looks like a Picasso drawing.
last time we saw Alicia, she had just plucked defeat from the jaws of certain victory, as her long campaign to be an official state lawyer collapsed. Now she’s touting for the American equivalent of legal aid cases, and disputing wills in the probate courts. That’s quite a fall.
To make it worse, her selfobsessed, amoral, serial adulterer of a husband, the man who was jailed for paying prostitutes with taxpayers’ money, is running for Vice-President. And she is expected to stand beside him on television and smile sweetly . . . the good wife.
One of the great things about this show is its many recurring guest stars, including Matthew Perry from Friends and broadway legend Nathan lane, as well as David hyde Pierce from Frasier.
This time the spotlight was on Michael J. Fox, who plays louis Canning — the diabolical boss of a law firm that has repeatedly tried to destroy Alicia and is now attempting to woo her.
Fox, who has Parkinson’s disease, does not try to hide his illness, but instead makes brilliant, creepy use of it. Alicia calls him ‘ the devil’, but he’s more like a malevolent hobgoblin.
Just as good is Alan Cumming as political fixer Eli Gold, who is as camp as Judy Garland in a snow globe. Eli’s aggrieved aplomb when Alicia’s husband sacked him was worthy of Dame Edith Evans.
but this show is about the female leads, and we got our first glimpse of the character who could replace Kalinda: bargain basement lawyer lucca Quinn, played by londonborn actress Cush Jumbo. Dig out the remote control, track down More4, and set the record button.
strong women are the driving force of the long-running sitcom Birds Of A Feather ( iTV), by laurence Marks and Maurice Gran. The set-up hasn’t changed in a quarter of a century, with Pauline Quirke as the feckless sharon, sponging off her older sister Tracey (linda Robson), while their brassy friend Dorian (lesley Joseph) sticks her nose in.
it is sitcom in the classic mould, from the same school as Only Fools And horses or Porridge, by two professional writers who can turn a line like a magician flipping a coin over his knuckles.
The three stars know each other so well their timing is practically telepathic — you can bet not a lot of time is wasted on rehearsals.
The jokes ricochet between them. banished to a squalid bedsit in North london, sharon started ranting about ‘ethnic cleansing of the working class’. ‘Any sort of cleansing in here would be welcome,’ retorted Dorian.
They took the laugh in their stride, and raced on. This is thoroughbred comedy.