You're right about the first episode - and your critical analysis is thoughtful and quite astute - worthy of separate comment but only after considerably more thought and reflection on my end - but with respect to your critiques give the show more time!
The first episode (first two or three?) are good TV but, as you identify, quite grim in a number of ways.
The later episodes are much more fun. They're still serious, HBO-style TV. But they showcase the characters' strengths and charisma - including, as he pulls himself together and transforms from drunk PI to champion of justice and courtroom maestro Perry Mason, Rhys' good looks and charm. They also put the characters in more entertaining situations, in service of less mordant (or at least less ghoulishly grim) plotlines.
That's my recollection at least. I started out liking the show ok, mainly watching it because I like Rhys and HBO does a certain type of TV consistently well, if not always entertaining. By the end of the season I loved it as one of my favorite shows in years.
The series seems quite realistic compared to the original.
In the season 1 finale of the HBO series there’s a funny scene in which Mason is grilling a witness and Hamilton Burger shouts “it will never work. No one ever confesses on the stand." It’s an inside joke. On the original series Perry Mason always got the killer to confess in court. Every time.
It was just one of the many ridiculous tropes for which the series was famous. Like Mason never lost a case and poor Hamilton Burger never won.
You're right about the first episode - and your critical analysis is thoughtful and quite astute - worthy of separate comment but only after considerably more thought and reflection on my end - but with respect to your critiques give the show more time!
The first episode (first two or three?) are good TV but, as you identify, quite grim in a number of ways.
The later episodes are much more fun. They're still serious, HBO-style TV. But they showcase the characters' strengths and charisma - including, as he pulls himself together and transforms from drunk PI to champion of justice and courtroom maestro Perry Mason, Rhys' good looks and charm. They also put the characters in more entertaining situations, in service of less mordant (or at least less ghoulishly grim) plotlines.
That's my recollection at least. I started out liking the show ok, mainly watching it because I like Rhys and HBO does a certain type of TV consistently well, if not always entertaining. By the end of the season I loved it as one of my favorite shows in years.
I'm on the third ep now and it's really growing on me!
The series seems quite realistic compared to the original.
In the season 1 finale of the HBO series there’s a funny scene in which Mason is grilling a witness and Hamilton Burger shouts “it will never work. No one ever confesses on the stand." It’s an inside joke. On the original series Perry Mason always got the killer to confess in court. Every time.
It was just one of the many ridiculous tropes for which the series was famous. Like Mason never lost a case and poor Hamilton Burger never won.