The original “Perry Mason” TV series starring Raymond Burr premiered in 1957 and ran for nearly a decade. As courtroom dramas go, it’s an early classic that put a criminal defense attorney center stage. We haven’t seen much of that lately; cops and prosecutors predominate at the moment. So when HBO rebooted “Perry Mason” back in 2020 with Matthew Rhys (“The Americans”) in the title role, I was curious. Set in the early 1930s and focused on Perry Mason’s origin story, I found those eight episodes to be a hard-boiled slog with glimmers of potential. The series is back for a second season — eight more episodes spanning a single case — this time with new showrunners behind the scenes (Jack Amiel and Michael Begler, known for their work on Steven Soderbergh’s “The Knick”). It is much improved on all fronts.
The 21st-century incarnation of the show is more noir than procedural, but there’s something about its stylistic approach that feels set off by air quotes. (If you were hoping for a more traditional-minded legal drama, CBS is looking to bring “Matlock” back next season with Kathy Bates in the title role.)
A lot of time is given to the initial setup reintroducing us to Perry, who is now a fully fledged lawyer. A milkman pulls up outside his building (a nod perhaps to his family’s old dairy farm) and the camera follows as the driver carries his deliveries inside and deposits them in the boxes outside each apartment. And then, finally, Perry opens his door in a rumpled undershirt and boxer shorts and generally looking worse for wear. He grabs a bottle of milk and takes a swig.
