Given the recent news that showrunners Robert & Michelle King will be departing their own critically-acclaimed series after the current seventh season — and Emmy-winner Julianna Margulies' own joke that she'll be "unemployed come April" — it's understandable if fans of CBS' The Good Wife are worried about the fate of their favorite legal drama. There has been no official word from the network on the show's cancellation or renewal; but even if they did announce an eighth season, would the show ever be the same without its creators and star? We need all the Good Wife we can get before the Season 7 finale airs sometime this spring... and then along comes this silly football game to throw a wrench in the works. Will The Good Wife air an episode after the Super Bowl? Update: During the Super Bowl, CBS confirmed that The Good Wife will end after Season 7.
TGW fans are no stranger to the show's schedule being interrupted by football. In fact, TGW has been preempted by over-long games so many times that CBS actually had to add a "How To DVR The Good Wife " tutorial to their website in order to ensure viewers wouldn't miss half the episode every time it started late. But the Super Bowl isn't just regular ol' football… and it isn't just in danger of encroaching on TGW's 9 p.m. Sunday time slot — it's taking it over entirely.
Instead of reverting back to their original Sunday night lineup once the big game is over, CBS will be airing a super-special episode of their freshman talk show series The Late Show With Stephen Colbert , featuring high-profile guest stars like Tina Fey, Will Ferrell, Key & Peele, Margot Robbie, and Megyn Kelly. As disappointing as this may be for TGW fans, it's actually sort of exciting news since it's the first time a talk show has ever landed the coveted post-Super Bowl slot in the game's 50-year history.
Usually that honor goes to either scripted series airing big event episodes (like the Season 2 bomb episode of Grey's Anatomy in 2006 or the Season 2 "Thriller" episode of Glee in 2011) or high-profile reality programs (like the series premiere of Undercover Boss in 2010 or the Season 2 premiere of The Voice in 2012). In 2013, the last time CBS hosted the Super Bowl (the honor rotates among the Big Four networks), the network gave the post-Super Bowl honors to freshman procedural Elementary . Unfortunately, it seems that a legal drama in its seventh season simply isn't "buzzy" enough to reap the same reward.
Now, I've got good news and bad news for you. The good news is: TGW will return to its regular time slot the following Sunday. The bad news is: that Sunday is Feb. 14, aka an evening that will be spent by a large portion of the American populace not sitting in front of a television screen. That's right — TGW will be airing a very special Valentine's Day episode… although it sounds like love is definitely NOT in the air in Chicago's fictional law firms. The press release for the episode, "Monday," reveals that, "Alicia has trouble adjusting when she returns to work at Lockhart, Agos & Lee with Lucca. Their first case, involving a secret new computer tablet, causes a rift within the firm."
Even though airing on a major holiday is definitely bad news for the ratings, there's still reason to cheer: at least TGW is coming back this month at all. Both of the past two seasons in a row, the show came back from its Christmas break to air two episodes in January… and then go on another longer hiatus until March! Thankfully, there will be no such hiatus this year. Once the show returns next weekend, it will be back to its regularly scheduled programming.
And hey — if Alicia can forgive Eli for deleting that voicemail, then surely we can forgive the Super Bowl for bumping our beloved show off the air for a week.
Images: Jeff Neumann/CBS; Giphy.com (2)
