"The Good Fight is the TV gift women have been waiting for."

2017 has been the year of watching strong women survive on TV.

We’ve had The Handmaid’s Tale, which introduced us to a world where women must fight silently against a regime that has taken away their basic human rights.

We had the fifth season of Orange is the New Black, a riveting series of episodes where female prisoners negotiated for the basic elements they needed in order to survive a life behind bars while also mourning the unjust death of one of their own.

In Big Little Lies we once again opened our hearts to another group of women, this time to ladies who were struggling to navigate the complexities of parenting, friendships and domestic abuse.

While all these TV series gave us important stories that needed to be told, there has long been one aspect of women’s lives and struggles that has not bee granted the spotlight it deserves.

Until now.

Women’s triumphs and struggles in the modern workplace is an area that needed a fresh and compelling reboot – and that’s exactly what The Good Fight has given us.

The Good Fight is the acclaimed spin-off television series from the creators of The Good Wife, the beloved legal and political drama series that starred Julianna Margulies as lead character Alicia Florrick and ran for seven seasons.

The good news about The Good Fight is that you don't have to have watched The Good Wife in order to understand the plot lines or instantly feel drawn to the characters.

While there are a few background winks to the enduring fans who have followed the premise across to its new home, the show also does an excellent job of standing on its own feet.

The Good Fight kicks off a good year after the final events depicted in The Good Wife and revolves around Diane Lockhart (Christine Baranski).

Diane, who was a pivotal character on The Good Wife, is senior partner at her law firm and on the verge of retirement. After a successful career, and with a stellar reputation and legacy behind her, Diane is ready to live the good life.

Until she discovers that her entire life savings, entrusted to the care of one of her oldest friends, have been lost in a financial scam. On top of that, her current law firm will not allow her to remain on their team.

With no money left to support herself and nowhere left to turn, Diane must move on to a smaller, more radical firm where she has to almost start from scratch and repair her tattered reputation.

Diane is the kind of character that so many women strive to be. She is accomplished, intelligent, witty and can hold her own against any group of men in any boardroom.

She has done everything women are told to do throughout their lives in order to secure their own futures. She has had a successful career and built financial security. A fact that makes it even more poignant and relateable when she loses it all.

It's rare that we see a woman over 50 at the centre of her own TV show, and it's even rarer that her story revolves around a corporate world and her own professional battles.

She does not have a storyline that involves children, which is a story point on which a plot like this would often hinge. In reality, Diane's story could belong to so many women, and yet this is the first time we are seeing anything like it unfold on screen.

On the flip side of the show is Maia Rindell (Rose Leslie, aka Game of Thrones' Ygritte) a young lawyer from a well-to-do family who has just passed the bar and scored her dream job at her godmother Diane's law firm.

Her life is all going according to plan until her parents are caught up in that same financial scam Diane fell victim to. After her father is sent to prison, she loses her plum new law firm job - and ends up having to follow Diane to the smaller practice while suffering a torrent of online abuse due to her family's scandal.

Watching Maia's story play out alongside Diane's on screen is a great juxtaposition. Where Diane knows her place in the work hierarchy and is trying to regain it, we watch as Maia has to carve out a whole new path.

Her sexuality, while is never explicitly focused on in the first few episodes is, also a point of interest.

She is in a happy, long-term relationship with her girlfriend, a point which is only a source of positivity in the opening scenes. That's all until we see the harassment she is receiving from people who have lost money to her father, which becomes homophobic and sexually abusive in nature. It's a plot point that the writers handle with eloquence and care.

Lucca Quinn (Cush Jumbo) is the other strong female lead gifted to us by The Good Fight.

Long-term fans of The Good Wife will know her as a fan favourite character from the show's last seasons, but here we are reintroduced to her as a wildly capable young lawyer who has left Lockhart/Lee to join another one of Chicago's top-tier law firms, where she is once again working with Diane.

Lucca is also navigating her way through the complexities that come with working in the world of law and all the power plays that career entails. Due to her strong persona, intelligence and no-nonsense attitude, she initially becomes somewhat of a mentor to the much more timid Maia.

Cush Jumbo herself has spoken publicly about the need for diversity on screen (her mother is British and her father is Nigerian) and it's a thrill to watch her sink her teeth into such a meaty role.

Diane, Maia and Lucca are a trio of characters form different backgrounds, different ages and different sexual preferences, and it is these attributes that make them all the more compelling to watch.

It's not often that a TV show focuses on this side of women's lives, which is why every woman in Australia needs to watch The Good Fight. 

It's just damn good TV.

This content was created with thanks to our brand partner SBS The Good Fight.