Not My Father’s Perry Mason

Supercharged 1935 Auburn

Tonight, Anne has her Chicago night, but for me Monday night is Perry night. HBO’s TV series Perry Mason airs each week’s new episode on Monday. This is not my father’s Perry Mason, which is now in its second season. Its first season was fine. Its main purpose seemed to be to introduce the audience to this quite different version of Perry Mason, which is more closely aligned to the original written material. Set in Depression era LA, Mason, a PTSD afflicted WW I vet, is a mess, always on the verge of losing it. Unlike my father’s Perry Mason, here each season is devoted to one murder case, instead of the more familiar Raymond Burr MO of one case an episode and where the real perpetrator was always telegraphed by whom Perry called to the stand after the last commercial break. In this new series, defendants are not sprung through a climactic on stand confession of the real murderer (Except in one of Perry’s fevered dreams). In fact, they might be the murderer, but only in the most innocent of ways.

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