3 out of 5

Created by: Robert and Michelle King

covers season 1

Another spin-off of The Good Wife universe is to be celebrated; that it focuses on lawyer Elsbeth Tascioni is both wild and logical – if you had to choose one stand-out from this particular TV-verse, Carrie Preston’s presentation eclectic and seemingly unassuming but quite clever character is incredibly memorable, and worthy of “what else does she get up to?” questions, while at the same time, it’d be really easy to get too much of a good thing. The resultant show, Elsbeth, shifts the character to New York, and smartly gives us a new procedural angle from law by assigning Ms. Tascioni as a “consent decree” overseer – keeping an eye on cop behavior, a rather plum political topic for the creative team of Robert and Michelle King – and the episodic whodunnits we witness are undeniably quirked up by Elsbeth, and also a lot of fun.

However: this is a show that feels like it’s leaving a lot on the table; it’s a very, very, very sanitized and safe and crowd-pleasing offering from the Kings. In other words, a lot of fun, yes, but it could’ve been a lot funner.

The basic gist really is contained in the one-liner above: Elsbeth comes to New York with a new job title, and busybodies her way into helping NY’s finest solve cases. There’s a separate background plot thread for some intrigue, but it’s pretty weaksauce and stakeless; to the writers’ credits, this seems recognized, as any mysteriousness regarding this isn’t left drifting for too long. Otherwise, as other reviewers have noted, the charm of the show – beyond Preston – is in using the Columbo model of a howdunnit instead of a who, where we see the crime and perpetrator up front, and the runtime is taken up by the lead investigator making a hasty conclusion, only for Preston to sidle in, note some discrepant clues, and eventually suss out what really happened. These interactions are cute (as is the bond Elsbeth forms with officer Kaya Blanke, played by Carra Patterson, who’s really the only cop who starts to ‘get’ Elsbeth), but aligning with the simple and safe critique, the cases themselves never seem that complex, and the whole show is cast as villainous or naive archetypes, skewing things into pantomime. Again: fun, but could be funner.

I think this is also the first time a show from the Kings felt pretty out of step. The Good Fight played pretty well with generational differences, and had some fingers on modern pulses; Elsbeth often just seems like olds shaking their heads at these youths, and not bothering to much understand what’s going on.

If this all seems negative, I suppose it’s more that it’s… incredibly average. The tone is enjoyable; Preston is great (assuming you have an affinity for the type of quirk she’s portraying); and the Columbo structure is a nice switch from the norm. However, beyond The Good Wife lineage, beyond surface affectations, there’s not much differentiating this from your standard weekly popcorn procedural.