Claims that the CBS All Access streaming service “only has one show worth paying for” – meaning the upcoming Star Trek series due in January – may soon come to an end, as The Hollywood Reporter details today that a spinoff of the recently-concluded, critically-acclaimed legal drama The Good Wife is expected to be announced for the platform later this month, pending contractual negotiations.
Starring Julianna Marguiles, The Good Wife wrapped up its seven-season run this past Sunday on the CBS network, netting twenty-two Emmy nominations (including five Best Drama nods) along the way. This new spinoff, which THR is predicting with confidence, will be announced at CBS’s upfront presentation next week, will star longtime Good Wife veteran Christine Baranski alongside final-season new addition Cush Jumbo.
As television star power goes, Baranski is certainly it: the veteran actress has been nominated herself for fourteen Emmy awards — six times alone as the powerhouse lawyer Diane Lockhart on The Good Wife — and several times for her comedy work on The Big Bang Theory and Cybill, where she won Best Supporting Actress in a Comedy in 1995.
Cush Jumbo, an English actress who joined The Good Wife in 2015, spent most of her career to date in her home country (including a role in Torchwood: Children of Earth in 2009) before landing the role of attorney Lucca Quinn.
While Variety cautions that this deal isn’t yet locked in place, they do report that Baranski has been turning down many offers (including at least one “high-profile” role) for post-The Good Wife work in recent months, speculating that this spinoff has been in the works for some time.
For the holdouts among you, does this news make the prospect of subscribing to CBS All Access next year any more enticing? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below!