Week of October 10: "The Good Wife" Is a Shark Jumper

By Sylvia Gurinsky

Join the club, "The Good Wife."

The show that stars Julianna Margulies as Alicia Florick, the wife of a disgraced politician, had two seasons that put it among the finest legal dramas in television history. Margulies deservedly won an Emmy award for last season.

Then, creators Robert and Michelle King decided to break Rule One of television relationships: Never get two characters attracted to each other together until late in the series. They did so with Alicia and her boss/college friend/longtime crush Will Gardner, played by Josh Charles.

In so doing, the Kings tampered with the moral center of the show - Alicia - and with the focus of the scripts. The acting is as good as ever - the cast also includes Emmy winners Christine Baranski and Archie Panjabi, "Masterpiece Mystery" host Alan Cumming and veteran Chris Noth - but the show has lost its bull's-eye.

Many would say the show has "jumped the shark." The term, developed after a "Happy Days" episode in which Fonzie (Henry Winkler) jumped his motorcycle over a shark tank, was developed to describe programs that lose their creativity - and thus, the audience. (In fact, a website devoted to shows that have jumped the shark did the same thing when TV Guide's parent company acquired the site and diluted its contents.)

Can "The Good Wife" recover? History isn't promising. Shows such as "Moonlighting" have crossed the barrier and haven't come back. Some shows, such as "The West Wing," have come back. But "The West Wing" didn't have a romantic knot to untangle.

So far, "The Good Wife's" viewership has dropped by a couple of million, but that may be more because of a move from Tuesday to Sunday and the competition of NBC's football telecast. The real test will come when football season is over. Can Alicia and company get their game back on? More to the point, can Robert and Michelle King?

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