The original post: /r/television by /u/MissDiem on 2024-09-23 01:41:54.
Went in with the low expectations that heavily promoted standard network fare deserves, and at first it seemed to be more of the usual. Scenes and sets that scream network serial. Stereotype characters everywhere. Overwrought conflict for conflict’s sake.
But then Kathy Bates takes over. She’s still got it. The script gives her lots of those fun legal drama tricks and traps and she brings the right sass. Her doddering elder ruse is fitting for this clear successor to Matlock, Perry Mason, Columbo, and the genre.
There’s plenty of self-deprecating and self-referential meta humor, with Millenial colleagues and extras who have no idea what original Matlock ever was.
The legal part is notably weak with legal plot holes galore. A witness hangs out in the gallery before testifying. A brazen mistrial event is just brushed aside. A civil litigation is bizarrely framed as a criminal trial. Viewers with even passing knowledge of the law might hurt their brain.
The character and style are ultimately authentic to the ancestral legacy and Bates will ensure a watchable weekly product. To that point, apparently the series doesn’t actually begin until Oct 17. Today’s pilot airing was just an early preview.
I’d been searching every review to figure out how they intended to tie this to the original, but conspicuously, none of them did. No spoilers here but the twists in the pilot make it clear why reviewers held that back. It’s telegraphed, but it creates a season long arc that makes modern network series a bit deeper and more bingeable than when Andy Griffith helmed the show.