It was somewhat surprising when the mildly controversial series finale for CBS' The Good Wife was almost immediately followed up with news of an impending spinoff, not that anybody was complaining about getting more from Christine Baranski's Diane Lockhart. But had creators Robert and Michelle King had allowed for a proper resting period before going into action on The Good Fight, they might not have had to go through emergency rewrites while the pilot was already in production. It turns out their confidence in Hillary Clinton's presidency really showed in The Good Wife's writing.
Like most pollsters, we thought Hillary Clinton would win the Presidency, so we wrote scenes about Diane retiring from the law because she 'broke every glass ceiling. Obviously we needed to rewrite --- on the 8th day of shooting.
According to Robert and Michelle King, there was originally a scene in the pilot that had Christine Baranski acting quite happy and content with Hillary Clinton on the road to becoming our next President, and that was definitely an example of something that got excised with the quickness. With the pilot more than a week into shooting, one doesn't eagerly anticipate alterations like that, but the Kings didn't seem to be too put out in describing the situation to EW in this month's print issue (via TheWrap).
The Good Fight will center on Diane Lockhart getting shooed away from the legal career fans watched her excel at for years, and then teaming up with her goddaughter Maia, played by Game of Thrones' Rose Leslie, in joining a Chicago law firm that also includes Lucca Quinn (Cush Jumbo). Though the pilot was supposed to recognize and celebrate female power through Clinton's run as POTUS, gears had to be changed, and the Kings were then given the chance to have Diane's reactions sit front and center.
The show tends to be a satire of the liberal mindset, so it felt funny and awful to play off Diane's stunned reaction to the [Trump] inauguration.
Donald Trump's victory over Hillary Clinton caused a wide variety of reactions from people all over the planet, and as can be seen here, certain people within the entertainment industry were affected in quite different ways. Beyond The Good Wife, Trump's win and the preceding campaign caused Veep's creative team to cut out a running gag about female genitalia, and TNT's population-splitting drama project Civil had to get scrapped entirely after its pilot was filmed, as it was a little too reflective of the country at large. One can almost always count on real life getting in the way of one's goals, and 2016 has been particularly pervasive in this area. For what it's worth, Robert King is now confident that Donald Trump's inauguration will happen.
Hopefully without any more delays for rewriting coming in the future, The Good Fight will make its highly anticipated debut on CBS All Access, the network's exclusive streaming service, with several familiar faces also there. Head to our midseason premiere schedule to see what else is hitting the small screen in the new year.
