CBS just announced with a promo during the Super Bowl that the current season of The Good Wife will be its last, with nine episodes left. The Good Wife’s future had been in limbo with the recent announcement that creators/executive producers/showrunners Robert and Michelle King would be departing the series after the current seventh season.
While not completely unexpected — the duo had publicly discussed a plan to do the show for 7 seasons — the Super Bowl promo resolved what had been an uncertain future for the series, with the contracts of most of its original cast members, including star Julianna Margulies and co-star Alan Cumming, up.
CBS Entertainment president Glenn Geller in January was pretty confident that The Good Wife “can certainly continue” beyond the current seventh season, and producing studio CBS TV Studios had been working on a succession plan, with The Good Wife executive producer Craig Turk tipped to take over showrunner duties from the Kings after working under them for the past few seasons.
But the confluence of the two things — cast’s contracts expiring and the Kings’ exit — complicated plans for continuing the series. Robert and Michelle King have written every pivotal episode of The Good Wife and have earned all but one of the show’s major writing awards nominations. It felt appropriate for the duo to see their show off.
Margulies jokingly hinted at The Good Wife‘s potential end when she told a room full of casting directors a few days ago at the Artios Awards’ tribute to the Kings that “I’m unemployed come April, and I think you haven’t seen me in a while, at least not in person, so I thought I should show up.”
There hadn’t been much movement on negotiating new contracts with the actors, and CBS had to move relatively quickly to making a decision on whether the series will continue or not so the show — the last broadcast drama to get major awards recognition — could get a proper sendoff.
Calling it a day is not expected to involve rewriting the last episodes of the current season. The Kings have made it clear that the storytelling they had had in store for the show will be completed with the Season 7 finale, which could serve as a satisfying ending to the series. Now it will be a definite end.
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