I liked the first season of the re-imagined Perry Mason. The changes to the characters didn't bother me all that much. I wasn't a crazed fanatic of the original series anyway. In the first season, Mason defends a woman wrongfully accused of killing her baby. The season ends with a mistrial being declared, so Mason sort of wins, but not really. Again, this didn't bother me, because, in this new version of the classic character, he has just become a lawyer and is only beginning to find his way around the courtroom. I expected season two to show a much more confident Perry Mason, something closer to the original TV character: a hero. But no; he's still this stuttering, bumbling clown whose "assistant," Della Street, is the real brains in the practice. I know you'll forgive me for giving away the ending of season two, since anyone reading this is probably somebody I know personally, but, it turns out, that the two Mexican brothers accused of the murder actually did it! Mason is defending guilty people! And the "victory" is that only one of them is sentenced to prison; the other goes free. 30 years in prison; so much better than the hangman's noose.
Now, you can make Della Street a lesbian; you can make Paul Drake black; you can make Hamilton Burger gay; and you can even make Perry Mason a stammering loser who has none of the smooth, dapper confidence of Raymond Burr's portrayal, but the one thing you cannot do is change the FUNDAMENTAL BASIS of the character: Perry Mason is about a lawyer who defends people wrongfully accused of murder and who finds a way to exonerate them!!! That's it. That's the WHOLE POINT of Perry Mason as a concept. This new show is more of a soap opera with an extended cast of about two dozen people, none of whom, quite honestly, is as interesting as seeing a slick, heroic lawyer triumph over a legal system quick to condemn an innocent person of murder.
Good points: Beautiful period (1930's) sets and costumes and cars. Also, nice to see Wallace Langham in action again. One more thing: I can't tell if Matthew Rhys looks and acts more like Bill Murray or Gene Hackman. What do you think, people I know personally?
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