Join The Good Fight

The Good Fight season 1 DVD
featuring stars (l-r) Cush Jumbo,
Christine Baranski, Rose Leslie

I have a confession to make: I'm not a huge TV streamer.  There's simply too much good stuff to watch on network and cable TV, and it fills up my DVR (again, old fashioned tech, I guess, but it works for me.)  So I rarely have to go looking for extra ways to watch even more TV, especially at an extra cost, even if those series are widely acclaimed.

For one thing, eventually they'll come out on DVD.  And that's exactly the case with my favorite show currently on any platform, CBS All Access' The Good Fight.  A continuation of CBS' former (and amazing) series, The Good Wife, The Good Fight may even be a bit better than its predecessor.

Season 1 starts with Christine Baranski's Diane Lockhart, on the eve of her planned retirement, finding out that her savings have been wiped out by a Madoff-esque Ponzi scheme, perpetrated by her supposed friend, Henry Rindell.  Now, with Henry's daughter Maia (Rose Leslie)'s reputation destroyed as well, the two women join one of The Good Wife's most recently introduced and yet most beloved characters, Cush Jumbo's Lucca Quinn, at one of Chicago's pre-eminent, predominantly African-American, law firms.

CBS All Access is of course also the home of the newest Star Trek series, Star Trek: Discovery -- and its run, which began this past September, has been a boon to the now nearly four-year-old service in terms of attracting subscribers.  But Star Trek or no, The Good Fight is so good, it itself is also worth the monthly cost.

Season 1 consisted of ten, nailbiting episodes (and, it's worth noting, episodes which are free of network standards and practices constraints in terms of language and nudity) -- and as of this week, they're available on a three-DVD set, which also contains a gag reel and deleted/extended scenes.  The show's already captivating season 2 began "airing" -- if that's what one can call episodes which continue to drop each Sunday -- on March 4, and so now is the perfect time for newcomers (even non Good Wife watchers) to catch up.


The Good Fight
Season 1 available on DVD, release date March 13, 2018
Season 2 airing on CBS All Access, beginning March 4, 2018

Meet Madam Secretary

When Téa Leoni first read the pilot script for Madam Secretary, from renowned show creator Barbara Hall (Joan of Arcadia), “I knew right away who this woman was going to be.” In contemplating taking on her first regular dramatic series, Leoni admits that three role models immediately came to mind: Hillary Clinton, Madeleine Albright, and Condoleezza Rice.  So as an actress, “I’m in a great position, where I can steal from those women, and the show can imagine more.”

To that point, Leoni explains that Madam Secretary will show not only the high-stakes working world of brand-new Secretary of State Elizabeth McCord -- amid an administration boasting Keith Carradine as the president, and Emmy winner Zeljko Ivanek, multiple Emmy/Tony winner Bebe Neuwirth and Tony winner Patina Miller among his staff -- but the other half of her life as well, with husband Henry (Tim Daly) and two kids.

The highly-sought actress reveals she was already a big fan of the similarly multi-faceted The Good Wife (and indeed CBS' President Nina Tassler and the network's scheduling guru Kelly Kahl both joke that Madam Secretary is perfectly positioned among its new Sunday night neighbors, because "the show looks like what would happen if 60 Minutes and The Good Wife had a baby.")  With Julianna Margulies’ Alicia Florrick now following Leoni's Elizabeth McCord, the 48-year-old actress is excited that “we have strong, complex and dynamic women on television.”  So while in real life, Leoni hopes that Mrs. Clinton will leverage her years of experience into a presidential bid in 2016, for now, regarding her character, a former professor and CIA analyst, “This is the woman I want to see in office.”

Madam Secretary

CBS

Sundays at 8PM

beginning September 21

CBS Goes Gayer

Last week, the gay media watchdog group GLAAD issued its annual report card, where it grades TV networks on their representation -- or lack thereof -- of LGBT characters. As in the past, in GLAAD's estimation, CBS flunked out.

This morning, at the very start of the two-week Television Critics of America press tour in Beverly Hills, CBS President Nina Tassler was asked to address the failing grade.

The network, she said first of all, did have a few gay characters in some of their pilots for this fall, but none of those got picked up. And so, she says, "We're adding a few characters to this season because we're very disappointed in our track record so far. We know, and we will do better."

There will be at least three new gay characters on CBS this fall, Tassler pointed out. We will meet Alicia Florrick's gay brother in season 2 of The Good Wife. On Rules of Engagement this fall, we'll meet the lesbian from Jeff's softball team who will become the surrogate mother for Audrey and him. And on S#*! My Dad Says, Tim Bagley's gay DMV worker -- in my estimation, the best part of that show's pilot -- has become a series regular.

Stay tuned for more news coming out of the TCA, including spoilers from Desperate Housewives' upcoming season 7!