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The cult detective is back in a Depression-era HBO series starring Matthew Rhys. While it looks as if it might be worth sticking with, be prepared to wince
In these post-Game of Thrones times, it takes a lot for a TV show to be so gruesome as to elicit a genuine wince from the viewer, but Perry Mason (Sky Atlantic) manages it at several points during its gory opening episode. This is no reboot-replica of the Raymond Burr 50s/60s series – rather, it’s an origin story that grimly dwells in the darkest corners of post-Depression Los Angeles. Here, pre-legal career, Mason is a dour, burned-out PI, with a broken marriage and a drinking habit (aren’t they all?) investigating a horrifying crime that becomes a media sensation.
As a series, it takes itself desperately seriously. The episodes are called chapters. Men glower from beneath their brimmed hats, and there is a lot of intense TV smoking, characters furrowing their brows and dragging on cigarettes as if breathing their last breath. When a missing child case takes a grisly turn, Mason and his loose collection of sort-of-colleagues step in to defend the parents against any unseemly accusations. The LAPD are not to be trusted. The population of the city is “starving, scared, hopeless”, according to one studio boss, who sees the movies as their dollar’s worth of escapism. The main case twists and turns its way through this opening episodeand forms the bulk of this eight-part first season. Continue reading...