Perry Mason (2020)

By about episode 3 it hits its stride, and you realize that as splashy as the murder mystery hook might be, it is not the plot that is the puzzle here, it is the people. There is a jigsaw-player’s pleasure in watching how their scattered, frayed edges will eventually fit together, how they will slowly reconfigure across the eight episodes into a stable new status quo. That of course relies on exceptional performances and “Perry Mason” delivers right across the cast.

The experimentation that Jones and Fitzgerald have done here shows their love for the original but also their desire for expansion and their trust that the solidity of the foundation could hold up a story with more layers. Beyond that, it could be just downright entertaining, too.

HBO’s reboot somehow feels vitally current, with richly drawn characters, gorgeous visuals, a genuinely compelling central mystery and another terrific lead performance from star Matthew Rhys.

A more realistic and sordidly satisfying [Perry Mason]. ... Rhys is a marvelous Perry. [22 Jun - 5 Jul 2020, p.6]

Despite a slow start, “Perry Mason” is an easy series to become engrossed in. Incredible production design and a first-rate cast will make you feel like you’re in the middle of the action.

The show is primed to improve next year. “Perry Mason” is an exquisitely rendered crime noir made for people who appreciate the genre — or simply people who appreciate thoughtful, detailed, and purposeful storytelling in general.

Matthew Rhys’ powerful performance is the main reason to watch this reboot of Perry Mason, but the mystery is intriguing enough to justify watching all of the show’s fine performances.

Perry Mason is its own brooding beast. It looks and sounds wonderful, every set and costume furnished in immaculate detail, with enough nudity and violence to let you know this is Telly For Grownups.

Perry Mason is the ugliest fun-to-watch show (or perhaps the funnest-to-watch ugly show, I don't know) since Showtime's cuddly serial-killer-next-door series Dexter left the air nearly a decade ago, and the cracked side of America's national psyche will be the better for it.

As the show more or less transforms in flight, each episode becomes a more fitting showcase for Rhys, an actor who projects square decency even when he’s neither square nor decent. ... As Perry becomes his superhero-lawyer self, as he assembles his newly diverse supporting team, the detective show gives way to the more straightforward pleasures of a courtroom drama, where the system can work, even if it’s just barely, because there’s a lawyer to believe in.

What makes “Perry Mason” absorbing is how well the show balances the sorrow of the case Mason is investigating – an infant has been kidnapped, and killed – with vintage touches, including a terrific cast.

The series is gory and dour with a bone-deep cynicism, but it’s also optimistic in its own small way, an origin story that chronicles how its characters find a means to fight rather than serving as dejected, disgusted observers.

Rhys deftly unfurls the enigmatic character layer by layer, crafting this degenerate into a more recognizable version of the legal icon revered for decades. The mystery of how he’s able to pull that off is far more compelling than the unsavory plot that strings Perry Mason along.

The audience for this show – I've no doubt there's a ready one – should feel ably served by the material. To those who know the title, "Perry Mason" is unexpected. Those who don't may well be enamored of its overall execution, fitting of a top title. It's a high grade of fine that left me in want of something entirely new.

Spread over eight episodes, this “Perry Mason” deserves the time you give it. It lets supporting characters have their moments and it gives Rhys yet another opportunity to display just how fertile his imagination is. If there’s a second season – and that’s quite likely – it’d be nice to see cases closed after two or three episodes.

"This is not your grandma's Perry Mason" isn't much of a marketing pitch. A better description for this sort-of origin story, however, is "Chinatown" meets "Boardwalk Empire," in a slick, gritty period crime drama that's good enough to make an argument for watching, if not quite an open-and-shut case.

A simultaneously gorgeous, gritty, and sometimes downright gory period piece filled with fine performances, but also overloaded a little with B and C storylines that could have been streamlined or cut. The excess fat in Perry Mason is a flaw, but not enough of one to detract from what is, overall, a fine and absorbing season of television.

I vaguely enjoyed what I watched, and there’s a pull to keep going. It’s a mild pull, more echo than shout, and one whose call I probably won’t answer right away, but it’s there regardless.

From a narrative standpoint, Perry Mason isn’t quite top-shelf HBO. In the spirit of the endearingly contrived original series, where Mason regularly got culprits to confess under oath, there are plot holes, unbelievable twists, speeches that sound great but raise more questions than they answer. Fans of the original’s case-of-the-week format may not be the only viewers frustrated by the slow pace of this serialized reboot. But Rhys leads a stellar cast.

Strictly speaking, it works better than it should. There’s so much sunk into the production that the world of the show really comes alive, and the mystery is engrossing and unpredictable. ... . But the story doesn’t let us into [Sister Alice (Tatiana Maslany) and her controlling mother's] interior lives quite enough. It’s a glaringly deficiency, because the series spends altogether too much time wading in the shallows of the men’s feelings—be it Perry, E.B., or one of the dozen-odd suits that end up holding significant information.

With a strong lead performance by Matthew Rhys, an ensemble to die for and impeccable Depression era production values, the show makes a solid case for itself without ever exactly giving a compelling answer as to why, of all the available IP in the world, this was the brand anybody wanted to mine. ... Perry Mason generally avoids feeling like an assembly line Cable Anti-Hero: Great Depression Edition. Much of the credit goes to Rhys.

Strained at times, wandering at others, “Perry Mason” finds its footing eventually and by its end you may want to watch a second season even as you hope it’s better than the first.

Over the course of eight episodes, the show delves into Mason's past while redefining him for a new age of television driven by complex characters, richly detailed worlds, and season-long storylines. It manages those first two elements so well that it's a shame it keeps tripping over the third.