‘Elsbeth’ Star Carrie Preston on Columbo’s Inspiration, That ‘Good Wife’ Reference and Taking Center Stage
variety.comAdam B. Vary Senior Entertainment Writer SPOILER ALERT:This story includes major plot developments on the first episode of “Elsbeth,” airing on CBS and streaming on Paramount+.
On “Elsbeth,” Carrie Preston reprises her Emmy winning role as the eccentrically shrewd attorney Elsbeth Tascioni, a fan favorite character from the CBS drama “The Good Wife” and its Paramount+ spin-off “The Good Fight.” On those shows, Elsbeth’s scatterbrained behavior disarmed her courtroom adversaries — and, just as often, her own clients — only for her to upend everyone’s expectations with some ingenious legal sleight of hand.
Robert and Michelle King created all three shows, but rather than another serialized legal series, “Elsbeth” is a crime procedural, relocating its title character from Chicago to New York City as part of a government consent decree requiring the NYPD to allow a lawyer to observe their activities.
The conceit places Elsbeth on the other side of the legal equation in the vein of the classic series “Columbo”: The audience knows from the start who did it — in the case of the pilot, a well-respected theater director (Stephen Moyer) who kills a student to cover up their affair — and then watches Preston’s Tascioni try to solve it.
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