For years, The Good Wife has tightly crafted a series that cross-pollinates politics and the courtroom. While the Chicago setting and political spectrum has worked for the last six seasons, for Season 7, The Good Wife has decided to go bigger and bolder. On Wednesday, we learned that The Good Wife is going to take things to a national stage when Peter Florrick attempts to run against real-life politician Hillary Clinton to secure the Democratic nomination for President.
First and foremost, we’d like to point out that this doesn’t necessarily mean that Hillary Clinton will actually pop up in the critically-acclaimed CBS drama. (Although, if the show did manage to land her, it would be quite the coup.) But it does mean The Good Wife is preparing to shoot a tricky seventh season that will keep storylines on the show happening at the same pace as the actual political primaries that will be playing out over the next season.
Creator Robert King—who runs the ship along with his wife Michelle—told TV Line that trying to parallel what is actually happening in the Democratic primary with what is happening on their fictional TV show should be a challenge, considering the show will shoot episodes well ahead of the time they will actually air.
The difficult thing for us is we started writing these scripts in June, so you’re always kind of guessing where things are going. And we’re stunned in politics how things change overnight. We’re not sure if Biden will enter the race at this point. We have the ability to ADR some lines in if that’s necessary, but we’re kind of playing the betting game at this point.
In addition, King also says that the Iowa caucus will definitely play a part in Season 7. If Peter really makes it into the full swing of the Presidential race, it could open the show up to some more prime guest stars if all works out. After all, some political-oriented guest stars have appeared in the past.
Honestly, the addition of a Presidential race sounds pretty stressful, but if anyone is the master of handling stressful plots, it’s the writing staff of The Good Wife. Week in and week out, the drama tackles one plotline after another that keeps audiences at the edge of their seats; in the past this has included tragic court cases, episodes with people attempting to extort politicians, law office takeovers, and in one memorable instance, lead Alicia Florrick having to deal with her son facing drug charges. I do, however, like the idea of giving Peter Florrick more to do. Despite the fact that Peter has a lot of power in the government, he’s always taken second chair to the Alicia storylines (the show is called The Good Wife), and while I hate when Alicia has to pseudo smile while in a room with her sometimes-estranged husband, their relationship is one of the more interesting on TV and the show could use more of Alicia interacting with Peter.
The Good Wife will be jumping in soon enough. Season 7 will premiere on Sunday, October 4 at 9 p.m. ET, followed by a new episode of CSI: Cyber. To find out what else is coming up on CBS and the other networks, check out our fall TV premiere schedule.
