Wow, out of all new shows this season, The Good Wife ranks up there with Flash Forward. The writing is smart, the pacing is great, and of course the acting headed by Julianna Margulies is top-notch. The show's premise is taken from the headlines. Congrats to me for not using the word' ripped.' It just sounds so crude. We all know the yearly sex scandal by a politician while his dutiful wife stands beside. There seems to be a lot more of these scandals as of late due to as I suspect a general disrespect for politician's and their personal lives. I'm sure JFK would be skewered in today's world of investigative journalism and electronic media, but I digress.

The press conference in the beginning is extremely well made from the lighting to the interspersed cuts of the incriminating videotape. Alicia (Julianna Margulies) has the all too familiar blank look signaling she doesn't really know what to do. She tries to look out into the crowd, at her husband's hands, and finally a thread on his jacket. That's the image the media shows us, but what happens behind closed doors? The Good Wife tries to portray what may happen and it does not disappoint. Right after the press conference, she gives him a slap he deserves though I think a couple hundred more would do justice.

Six months later and her husband (Chris Noth) is in prison for corruption, charges he insists aren't true. Without any income, Alicia needs a job, and having practiced law before raising a family, she jumps right back into a law firm. There is a nice balance between her personal life and the case she is on which is pro bono.

The court case is simple and straightforward, but the pacing is fast and it never got too heavy. Her client is accused of killing her ex-husband. She swears someone else shot him, but the surveillance tape does not corroborate her story nor does the eye witness account. She finds some evidence the police glossed over and caught the lie of a security guard. Being her first case in years, it starts off rocky, but Alicia finds her footing and manages to get her client off. Her co-worker Kalinda helps her a lot. I enjoyed their relationship professionally and personally.

I definitely will be watching this show every week and reviewing it. There's some social commentary blended in with all the office politics, and of course the whole point of the show which is the wife.

Score: 9.6