I know that now as HBO has put out a new Perry Mason series that just premiered this year. This entry is a review of that series, not the television series.
Still, because the television series is so famous, it's not really possible to deal with the new HBO series without dealing with the tv series, and indeed, the HBO series basically acknowledges that. Taking off before the legendary Los Angeles trial lawyer's career is supposed to have started, Mason is uniquely suited for this treatment as apparently lawyer, turned author, Earl Stanley Gardner, never bothered to fill in the background details of his character. In very early novels, apparently, some slight clues to Mason's past were inserted, but that's about it. In later ones, people just took it for granted that Mason was a solo practitioner super trial lawyer with a strong investigative streak and didn't look for more.
If that seems odd, modern television shows often don't offer more than that either. Some do, but many do not.
Anyhow, there were a huge number of Perry Mason novels written by Gardner, followed by movies, and then ultimately the television series, all set in the time in which they were written or filmed.
HBO's series takes the opposite approach, putting the character back into the early 1930s in the depth of the Great Depression, just as prohibition is about to end, and introduces us to a disaffected, not yet lawyer, Mason played by Matthew Rhys. It's done brilliantly.
Rhy's Mason isn't yet the super lawyer. Rather, he's a Depression era dairy farmer turned private detective. He's also way down on his luck. An air strip is crowding his farm, which is down to two cows. His family has left him. He's a heavy drinker who has a "blue discharge" (a discharge that simply discharged from the service, usually given due to morals charges that weren't developed) from the Army in World War One. He's suffering from PTSD, as we'd now term it, and early on we learn why.
He's working for an elderly Los Angeles lawyer who has practiced a bit beyond his mental acuity who is assisted by an extremely able Della Street (Juliet Rylance). The series takes us to a complicated story involving the kidnapping and murder of an infant in which the mother is accused. I'll not get into the plot beyond that except to note that the plot informs us on how Mason becomes a lawyer.
The entire season one (there will not be at least a season two) is excellently done. The plot is extraordinarily complicated but not so much that it's impossible to follow. Fans of Foyle's War will find a similar approach in that regard except that the pacing is blisteringly fast (I actually had to watch a couple of the episodes twice in order to figure out what was going on with all of them). Like Foyle's War the series has a sense of reality about it which is achieved in part by either making reference to actual events of the time. The Ludlow Massacre is a frequent and surprising reference. The Sister Alice (Tatiana Maslany) subplot draws loosely on an actual California female evangelist of the period. A fan of history will catch these references but the non student of history doesn't need to know of them to view the series. Still, such details is unusual and captivating for a history fan.
One thing that I should note is that, like Babylon Berlin, set in a similar time period (1920s Germany) the HBO series isn't shy about nudity at all, and likewise it's really gritty in its portrayal. Prostitution is a feature of both series but in Perry Mason its given a really dark unattractive edge it deserves. Indeed, while nudity and sexual portrayals occur throughout the film, much of the nudity in Perry Mason is far from erotic. Parents, however, should be cautious and likely not let younger people watch the series.
On material details, the show is excellent. The early 1930s, which is a lot of ways harkened back to the late 1920s, is well depicted and no errors were detected. The racism of the period is well dealt with.
An oddity of the show, although not an enormous distraction in it, is the unusual focus on homosexuality. Della Street, who appeared in the television series as Mason's assistant, shows up in this series as well, in her early days as the assistant of E. B. Jonathan, the older lawyer that Mason is working for. In the television series viewers were always left wondering if there was a romantic relationship between Street and Mason that was just under the surface, and viewers here might somewhat wonder if that's a possibility in future episodes as well, but here Street's character is really developed and we learn that she's a well educated woman in a homosexual relationship with another woman. The story line isn't necessary for the plot, but it isn't a huge distraction either. We also learn, however, that Mason has a "blue discharge" from the Army, in which he was a World War One era captain, and it's hinted at that it was for a homosexual act, although we know that he's been married and has a son. We also learn in the series that Ivy League educated future District Attorney (he's an Assistant DA here) is also a homosexual.
The list of characters above does indicate, we should note, that fans of the 1950s/60s television who will recognize some characters, but they may not be identically portrayed. Street, in this HBO series, may be on her way to becoming a lawyer. Burger is on his way to becoming the DA. Paul Drake was apparently an investigator for Mason in the series, and we are introduced to him here, but he's an African American in the HBO series, which is critical to the plot.
Probably the only thing that the series could be criticized for is a loose treatment of courtroom procedure from time to time (but not consistently), but all in all, it actually does better with that than most legal dramas.
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