My girlfriend and I are watching The Good Wife. It's a legal drama centered around Alicia Florrick, the wife of Chicago's former DA Peter Florrick. She has to get back from being a gated community housewife to working as a lawyer after her husband is arrested on corruption charges, more precisely enjoying the service of prostitutes provided and paid for by a shady real estate developer. The fact that her appearance at a Clinton-style press conference with her husband is as well know to all her co-workers as is a leaked phone sex tape between her husband and a prostitute is not helping in her quest to be seen as herself and not only as her husband's wife.
While I seem to miss parts of the series' appeal due to the fact that I have no first-hand experience of the women-specific issues the main character is confronted with, it's a (mostly) brilliantly written legal and political drama - it usually has a "case of the week" style A-plot with her husbands ongoing involvement in Chicago politics (getting out of prison, running for DA again, etc) and it's effects on her career providing the B-plot. The influence of David E. Kelley-style legal drama is evident all over it, up to the "eccentric judges" running gag from "Boston Legal" being copied 1:1 to provide additional tension or some rare comic relief.
The only two things I am really missing are a focus on office politics and a distinct visual style: Due to the fact that Peter's career, the connected Chicago politics and Alicia's family life take up a huge chunk of room, not even half a dozen of her law firm colleagues got any depth to them that goes further than token $character, but that's obviously the limitations of the one-hour network TV drama taking it's toll. The fact that the look of the series is entirely forgettable, with Kalinda the investigator being slutty-dressed in overknee boots being the only thing standing out visually in a sea of nondescript office and court sets filled with armies of people in business suits and dresses, is less understandable. If one looks at the visual style of "Boston Legal" or a "CSI"-style procedural, one sees what can be acheived if one tries to develop it's own style even within the limitations of genre TV.
