The new Perry Mason is darker than you remember
It’s a little frustrating when you watch a show that has a lot of potential, and yet leaves much of it unfulfilled after a complete season. It’s been a while since I felt that way about a new series, so I suppose it was due. HBO’s Perry Mason has all the right elements- a superb cast, sterling production design, impeccable costumes and the seeds of a terrific procedural drama. But after the first season, these elements have all been thrown in the pot and stirred, yet remain to be boiled. I think they will, but it leaves you a bit unsatisfied.
This eight episode season serves as an extended origin story for the character created by Erle Stanley Gardner and made famous by Raymond Burr, who starred as the irate defense attorney in the long running 1960’s CBS drama. This show is a new, gritty reboot (much as I hate the term, which seems to apply to everything these days). Matthew Rhys stars as Perry, private investigator turned lawyer (about halfway through the season), stuck on a horrific case involving the murder of a baby whose mother is framed for the crime. At first he works for John Lithgow’s E.B. Jonathan, the attorney past his prime and whose place he must eventually take, as well as partnering with his trusty secretary Della Street (Juliet Rylance), and ultimately teaming up with cop turned PI Paul Drake (Chris Chalk).
A Depression era setting makes for some great sets
That’s the Perry Mason team of course, but it sure takes us a while to get there. In the meantime the mystery of this kidnapping/murder is only so interesting, as it appears to involve a corrupt church headed by an evangelical preacher nun, played with verve by Tatiana Maslany, but poor Maslany can only fare so well with an inexplicable character given an entire subplot that has no payoff or relevance to the main storyline. By the end you’re wondering why we had to spend so much time with this church (and can’t help but conclude they needed filler to drag out this extended pilot of a season).
You also wonder why this show is set in 1930’s Los Angeles. This wants to be kind of a “woke” version of Perry Mason (Della Street is now a lesbian, Paul Drake is now a black cop facing harsh racism in the police department), but given how far they push these issues you can’t help but wonder why they didn’t pick a different time period- maybe the 70’s? The only conclusion is that HBO’s budget allows for irresistably gorgeous period recreation, and there’s no one better than Emmy-winning director Tim Van Patten (of Boardwalk Empire fame) at setting the mood for this era. The show is filled with mood in every frame- not much can happen in an episode and you still fall for the lighting and heady noir inspired atmosphere.
And the characters do work. Rhys is a fiery, ornery Perry Mason who has crackling chemistry with his girl friday Della (did she have to be gay in this version? The two have the basis for a perfect will they/won’t they dynamic and it feels like a wasted opportunity, considering the original characters got married in one of Gardner’s books), and Paul Drake’s challenges as a black cop turned private eye is one of the changes that actually works really well for the period. I can’t wait to see the three of them at work in their new office, but why did we have to wait until the finale to set that up? I am looking forward to Season 2 though. With the (unnecessary?) prequel out of the way, it feels like now the real show can start.
Grade: B
The new Perry and Della make a great team, yet this one continues to deprive us of any romantic element between them (whyyyy?)
