The Good Wife: The First Season introduces us to the Florrick family, and more specifically, to Alicia Florrick (Julianna Margulies). Alicia is devoted wife to Peter Florrick (Chris Noth), that is, until he is disgraced and jailed for kinky dalliances with prostitutes and criminal activities while holding his position as Illinois' State's Attorney. Forced to leave their affluent home and move into an apartment, kids Zach (Graham Phillips) and Grace (Makenzie Vega) are having a hard time adapting, and Peter's mom, Jackie (Mary Beth Peil), has joined the family at the apartment while Alicia goes back to work as a defense attorney, a career she gave up 13 years ago to raise the children and support Peter in his political aspirations. Alicia takes a job at the prestigious firm of Stern, Lockhart & Gardner, having gone to law school with Will Gardner (Josh Charles) and the two have a flirtatious relationship that peppers the entire season. Alicia soon discovers that she was one of two Junior Associates hired for the same position, each having six months to prove who truly deserves the job. Cary Agos (Matt Czuchry) is her competition and he is quite arrogant; fresh out of law school, but good at what he does. While the two develop some mutual respect, they'll eventually wind up on opposite sides of the courtroom. Crack investigator at what eventually whittles down to simply Lockhart & Gardner is Kalinda Sharma (Archie Panjabi), beautiful, crafty and mysterious girl that she is. While at first she dislikes Alicia because Peter had fired her from a previous job, she eventually becomes Alicia's biggest supporter and ally. Last, but not least in this terrific ensemble of characters is Diane Lockhart (Christine Baranski), Will's partner and Cary's advocate during the season.

Alicia will face cases ranging from a distasteful but wealthy man who may or may not have murdered his wife, to a woman who is being denied experimental surgery by her insurance company on her unborn child, to religious prejudice, and even one involving dirty cops and witnesses on the run. Every episode is good and worth watching and since they are all self-referential, you'd do best to watch them in order. However, The Good Wife is not just a great courtroom drama, but also has several enduring storylines that wind their way through the season. First off is whether or not Peter Florrick was set up by his second in command (and eventual replacement), Glenn Childs (Titus Welliver). Throughout the season, the audience is twisted one way and the other, never really knowing whether Peter is a good man or not. Then there is Alicia and Will's ongoing attraction to one another. Will Alicia remain a "good wife" or give in to her own needs, after what Peter has put her through?

One thing I really liked is all of the interesting actors that had recurring, yet small parts in the show. People like David Paymer, Gary Cole, Martha Plimpton, Peter Hermann, Andre Grenier, Dylan Baker and Alan Cumming play judges, experts, opposing attorneys and even criminals and its nice to see them in assorted episodes, especially when they reference previous storylines.

Special features include a lengthy series of making-of featurettes all housed under a feature called The Education of Alicia Florrick: Making Season One, plus you'll also have deleted scenes, on-air promos, commentary on select episodes and deleted scenes and finally a featurette on real-life scandals and the inspiration they were for this series. My favorite feature has to be the deleted scenes and the ability to either watch them following their episode or as a collection for the disc. Some of them really opened up entirely new viewpoints on the various characters and took them in totally new directions, so I can see why they may have been cut. They are all worth watching though.

Overall, if you haven't yet seen The Good Wife: The First Season, now is the time to check it out. It's a great drama, and while Julianna Margulies may come off as a stick in the mud at first, the show is excellent and you'll find yourself wholly rooting for her the entire way through. It's nice to see her morph from a dowdy but devoted wife to a courtroom ass-kicker who does what she needs to do to take care of business. Highly recommended.