‘The Good Fight’ Will Make Its CBS Debut This Summer
There are fewer places on the TV spectrum with more guaranteed eyeballs than CBS. In the next few months, that might be a place where viewers can see a show that, until now, has only lived on a streaming platform. On a shareholders call Wednesday morning, CBS chief Joe Ianniello said that the network is exploring a move that would bring “The Good Fight” to CBS for a broadcast run of the show’s debut season starting June 16 — conveniently during Emmy nomination voting period.
Two years ago, CBS debuted “Star Trek: Discovery” on the network before all its following chapters moved to CBS All Access, the subscription-based streaming platform with “The Twilight Zone,” “No Activity,” and a number of other originals under its belt. “The Good Fight” recently wrapped Season 3 on the platform, but despite being a spinoff of former CBS drama “The Good Wife,” has never aired episodes on terrestrial TV.
The series follows the day-to-day operation of a Chicago-based law firm as they take on cases that often dovetail with prevalent social issues, including police brutality, online hate speech, and voter suppression. Christine Baranski stars as one of the firm’s name partners, Diane Lockhart, alongside a cast including Cush Jumbo, Rose Leslie, Delroy Lindo, Sarah Steele, and Audra McDonald. Michael Sheen was a frequent guest star in Season 3.
Though the show often takes on a more procedural, case-of-the-week structure, this new CBS run will not start with the series’ most recent season, instead airing Season 1. The show’s timely nature does mean that most recent episodes speak closer to headlines happening around the current presidential administration, but the show also made distinctive stylistic additions for its most recent batch of episodes. Most of those Season 3 changes surround a heavier influx of original music for the show, including animated videos for songs written by Jonathan Coulton.
One of those segments nearly led to the show being halted in its tracks. A recent New Yorker article outlined that series creators Michelle and Robert King were ready to stop working on the show in response to a China-themed interlude being censored from a late-Season 3 episode. Production eventually continued and the show was renewed for a fourth season last month.
Despite this stretch in the public eye, “The Good Fight” Season 4 would presumably still premiere on the CBS All Access platform.
This post has been updated to reflect that Season 1 will be airing on the network.
