
New on The CW this season is
Family Law, a light drama that serves up office and family conflict what a healthy serving of humor. The show stars two of our favorite actors, Jewel State (
Firely) and Victor Garber (
Legally Blonde), and if the first two episodes are any indication, The CW just might have a hit on its hands with this Canadian import
Staite stars as Abigail Bianchi, a hotshot attorney brought low by alcoholism. After an unfortunate courtroom incident and a stint in rehab, Abby is struggling to save her career and win back her family, but the humiliations keep piling up. To retain her law license, she's forced to work for her arrogant absentee father (Garner), who abandoned her decades ago. To make matters worse, she must work alongside her half siblings, whom she's never met (Genelle Williams,
Warehouse 13, and Zach Smadu,
The Expanse).
On paper, Abby is a tough customer. She's abrasive, sarcastic, resentful and occasionally mean. But Staite exudes likeability, and from the moment Abby appears onscreen, viewers are rooting for her.
“Initially when I started playing this role,” Staite told SciFi Vision during a recent press panel, “I had this silly worry that she wouldn't be likable. Then, I realized in order to make her as authentic as possible, I had to throw that out the window. It didn't matter if she wasn't likable; she just had to be as authentic as possible. She uses all of these coping mechanisms - the abrasiveness, the haughtiness, the overconfidence, her sense of humor - to hide all of this hurt and this pain that she just simply doesn't feel like dealing with. That is not something she's interested in facing for a really, really long time. So, it takes her quite a journey to admit any sort of mistake, and she's only willing to do it to get her family back and get her children back. Really, that's her sole priority. Unfortunately, her addiction gets in the way of that priority, but she's a person in a lot of pain. It's incredibly hard for her to be vulnerable, to show them.”