Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

People are weird.

“What are Republicans afraid of?” Everything.

Their boy Ron is an empty plastic cup that will never know pudding.

When I was faster i was always behind.

Balloon Juice, where there is always someone who will say you’re doing it wrong.

Republicans seem to think life begins at the candlelight dinner the night before.

The real work of an opposition party is to oppose.

You are either for trump or for democracy. Pick one.

Dear media: perhaps we ought to let Donald Trump speak for himself!

When someone says they “love freedom”, rest assured they don’t mean yours.

Technically true, but collectively nonsense

JFC, are there no editors left at that goddamn rag?

Nancy smash is sick of your bullshit.

The poor and middle-class pay taxes, the rich pay accountants, the wealthy pay politicians.

Disagreements are healthy; personal attacks are not.

Sadly, there is no cure for stupid.

With all due respect and assumptions of good faith, please fuck off into the sun.

The gop is a fucking disgrace.

There are more Russians standing up to Putin than Republicans.

Republicans don’t want a speaker to lead them; they want a hostage.

Speaker Mike Johnson is a vile traitor to the House and the Constitution.

When they say they’re pro-life, they don’t mean yours.

T R E 4 5 O N

Fundamental belief of white supremacy: white people are presumed innocent, minorities are presumed guilty.

You are here: Home / Popular Culture / Perry Mason – Conversation and Speculation

Perry Mason – Conversation and Speculation

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For decades, my best friend and I have watched “event” TV together.  Masterpiece Mysteries, True Detective, Luther, Broadchurch.

But now we can’t watch TV together, and we can’t even watch together at a distance because he doesn’t even have a TV or HBO.

We talk about each episode together, talk about the show, speculate about what the look that character X gave to character Y meant, etc.

Anyone willing to be Perry Mason buddies in this thread?

Plus, I’m feeling pretty grim about the COVID situation right now, and a distraction would be wonderful. Episode 3 of Perry Mason starts tonight.  I’m already hoping that the 8-part series could return next year with a different case to be solved.

Reader Interactions

203Comments

  2. 2.

    Frankensteinbeck

    Open thread?  I know nothing of Perry Mason, but I finished the next book in my Supervillain series last night, and put it together as a manuscript for beta readers today!  WOO!  It’s about a classmate of Penny’s who gets an after school job working for a supervillain who seems more heroic than villainous.  AND THEN THE MURDERS BEGIN.  Wait, no.  It’s not that kind of book.

  4. 4.

    raven

    We’re struggling to get control of our streaming service. Youtube TV just went from $50 a month to $65. We have Nextflix. Prime, Criterion, Hulu, Starz and I just took the deal on the Peacock network for $29 for a year. We don’t have HBO now and, from the reviews of Perry Mason, we probably won’t pick it up.

  5. 5.

    evodevo

    @evodevo: Yeah, we started watching it…so far, I’ve had to go online to figure out who all the characters are…I grew up with the original Perry Mason back in the Fifties/Sixties.  (My father used to fall asleep in front of the console TeeVee and then wake up at the end and ask us what went on lol).  I’m taking it that this version is a prequel?  I was interested to see one of my favorites, Tatiana Maslany, playing the Aimee Semple Mcpherson character..we’ll see how that develops.

  7. 7.

    zhena gogolia

    Well, any time you want to discuss “The Case of the Deadly Double” (1958), I’m there for you. Great performances by Constance Ford, Murray Hamilton, and Denver Pyle.

  9. 9.

    NotMax

    because he doesn’t even have a TV or HBO

    Does he have a computer? There are ways you can watch together (although not physically together) on computers.

  21. 21.

    MazeDancer

    @raven: Switching to Hulu live. What with getting Hulu ad free with it, big savings over ridic YTTV price increase.

  24. 24.

    mawado

    assuming you can watch it on your pc (hbogo/max/now whatever), you can share over zoom.

    Make sure you check share  computer audio at the bottom of the share screen.

    Luck

  28. 28.

    Mike J

    Was the second ep better than the first?  It seemed like they were obsessed with making it gritty and forgot about making it good.

  29. 29.

    WaterGirl

    @evodevo: Yeah, I can’t figure out the character that Tatiana plays.

    I also can’t help but wonder if, after playing all those roles Orphan Black, all other acting might feel ho-hum.

  30. 30.

    Suzanne

    I’ve been watching “The Baby-Sitters Club” with Spawn the Younger. It is fabulous kids’ viewing.

    I could write quite a blog post about how much that series positively impacted me as a kid and beyond and widened my world. The new version is both faithful to the spirit of the books and also have some great timely updates. Highly recommended for anyone with young ones.

  34. 34.

    Anya

    I’ve  watched the first episode but I didn’t like it. I am hoping it would improve because I always enjoy Matthew Rhys’ sad face.

  35. 35.

    WaterGirl

    @evodevo: No!  Sorry, you’ll see by my comment at #29 that I realized you were here and talking about Perry Mason, and I replied to you.

    edit: i did laugh at your story about your dad.  Mind always said he was “watching with my eyes closed”.

    The joke around here is that if I go get my blanket while watching a show with you, I’m a gone-er in very short order.  Steve started saying “good night” as soon as I got my blanket.

  36. 36.

    WaterGirl

    @Anya:  Try watching some more episodes.  We learn a lot more about Perry’s backstory and I think he’s really interesting.  I thought episode one was so-so, but episode 2 was GOOD.

  39. 39.

    lamh36

    I totally forgot about the Perry Mason prequel.

     

    IDK…I really did love the original and my mom still watched the old eps on one of the local syndicated stations, I love Raymond Burr, but I just wasn’t feeling the trailers for this one.

    I think I would have been more excited w/a bit of a reboot rather than a prequel…but if they make a serial I may catch it then.

  41. 41.

    trnc

    WG, I’ll watch Perry Mason if I can. I don’t have HBO, but my wife’s Am Prime has the HBO add-on so I’ll see if it’s available on that.

  42. 42.

    JAFD

    Good evening, fellow jackals !

    Can’t contribute to thread topic, as I don’t have TV either (“I’m told it’s a marvelous invention.  Oneovdezedaze…”)

    Will report there are flashing signs on front of some NJTransit buses

    ROUTE 41

    ORANGE

    FACE COVERINGS

    ARE REQUIRED

  43. 43.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @WaterGirl:

    Is it a fair guess to think the word “seems” is doing a lot of work there?

    Heh.  One of the main features of the Supervillain series is the question of whether the ‘hero’ and ‘villain’ tags are accurate, with lengthy explorations of people in grey areas.

  44. 44.

    WaterGirl

    @lamh36: I love the sly smile on Perry’s face in the courtroom intro to some of the episodes.

    I thought it might bother me that they made him so different, but it doesn’t.  In fact, you can see that both Perry and Paul Drake are underestimated and disrespected, and that they are better than their “betters”.

    So I can sort of see how we might get from here to the Perry we know and love.

  45. 45.

    James E Powell

    I started watching it, but need to catch up. I would be love to talk about it because I’m not sure what I’m watching. My only experience was the TV show, in re-runs, and then a couple episodes of the one with the guy from the Great American Hero playing Paul Drake Jr.

    I made it a point not to learn anything about his HBO version before watching. Most of my great experiences in movies & television have been when I knew nothing. Did I make a mistake? Do I need background?

  51. 51.

    WaterGirl

    @Frankensteinbeck: You may not recall, but I’m the one who bought your “Don’t Tell My Parents…” book for my niece’s daughter, and they wouldn’t even let her have the book.  “Too dark.”  So ridiculous!

    Nothing good every resulted from parents (and in this case grandparents, as it is my sister who embargoed the book) being overprotective.

  52. 52.

    WaterGirl

    @James E Powell: You absolutely don’t need any background, because there is not much (if any) connection between the Perry we knew from the TV show and this younger down-and-out Perry we see in this one.

  53. 53.

    WaterGirl

    @NotMax: OT, but if you drop the URL from the @replies you create by hand, it doesn’t stall out for a minute when clicking the link you make, as it does now.

  56. 56.

    Julia

    I’m watching it! I also thought the second episode was better than the first. I was confused about the fact that Perry is a P.I. rather than a defense attorney but figure that will change as the series goes on? But there’s definitely enough here to keep me interested; at this point I am getting gripped by the mystery. The cast is fantastic, and the L.A. period locations are excellent as well.

  57. 57.

    Nicole

    I’ll try to give the show a go, Watergirl.  It’s been tough with the ten-year-old home since March, AND the husband working from home.  While I enjoy their company, with the husband working in the bedroom and the 10-year-old liking to hang out in the living room it means I never get the TV to myself to watch grown-up shows.  I had to binge all of the most recent season of Insecure during a brief two afternoons I got to myself.

    This weekend has been all Predator, Alien and Predator v Alien movies, of varying levels of quality.  So goes my life in a pandemic.

  60. 60.

    Kathleen

    @WaterGirl: I’ve watched the first 2 episodes and will be happy to chat with you about it. I catch episodes on demand because I don’t stay up late to watch TV.

    It’s hard for me to describe my reaction. It’s very different and I’m having a bit of trouble catching the rhythm of the show. But Perry Mason (Matthew Rhys) captured me in the first scene so I’m sticking with him. I watched all the trailers and thanks to Matthew Rhys’ explanation I’m starting to get a handle on him.

    Are you addicted to Succession? I cannot wait for the next season.

  62. 62.

    Kathleen

    @evodevo: I’m still getting in the flow. All I know at this point is that I want to see how character Perry Mason evolves.

  63. 63.

    NotMax

    @WaterGirl

    Strictly FYI, I don’t hand type the URLs. I copy/paste the URL the site serves up on the date accompanying the comment being replied to.

  64. 64.

    lamh36

    @WaterGirl: like the original Perry Mason show.  A case of the week or maybe a limited series case for the season, ala How To Get Away With Murder?  I think what I liked about the OG series is the serial nature of it.  It was L&O before L&O was even created ya know?

  65. 65.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    We’re on a little bit of a Baking Show blitz here, one episode a day. We worked our way through the British one, then started wondering how many franchises they’ve spun off. The answer is “a lot”. The problem is finding episodes online.

    We found the Australian one on dailymotion.com and are working our way through that. There’s also an Irish, a South African, and a Kenyan one. I guess there was an American one, but it ended in a sexual harassment scandal and they never aired most of the last season and pulled all the earlier ones too.

    And there’s one in French, Le Meilleur Patissier, with at least some of the episodes on YouTube. But it has no closed captions or subtitles, so we have to work up our courage to see that one.

    Today’s big discovery was a guy who archived all the English-language shows, including the lost American shows, on a cloud server. So we’re set for months.

  66. 66.

    Frosty Fred

    @NotMax: I take it you are entering a new message in the comment box, rather than using the “reply” function? I don’t have any problem with your messages hanging up either, but maybe it’s different on other systems.

  67. 67.

    NotMax

    While only part way through it, curiously the new season of Deadwind on Netflix manages to be intense and lethargic at the same time. Something (so far) is just ‘off’ with the rhythm.

  68. 68.

    jeffreyw

    I’m so spoiled by binge watching that I have no patience in series that only come out with 1 per week episodes.  We will prob watch PM when this season is over.  Sets up another peeve – trying to remember what went on in the previous season when the new one drops.  Some have better previous season reminders than others.

  69. 69.

    geg6

    @WaterGirl:

    I’ve only seen the first episode so far, but I’m liking it much better than the old show.  It’s much more like the original books, I think.  And for those wondering, yes, it’s a sort of prequel.  More like an origination story.

  70. 70.

    WereBear

    We watched the first episode of Perry Mason, figured out this was the prequel, but I honestly don’t understand why they called it Perry Mason. Plenty of confusion and hurt online because what they are advertising is not what they are selling.

    I thought the first one was more atmosphere than mysterious… we’ll give the second episode a go.

  72. 72.

    JaySinWA

    @MattF:  The thing I find curious about the Flynn pledge is the reference to taking office. Are they seeing this as a formal appointment to an office? In what? An army/militia or pseudo government?
    I haven’t seen anyone talking about what that means.

  73. 73.

    errg

    I’ve watched the first two episodes, agree that the 2nd one was a lot better than the first, but I’m still not totally hooked. I love the period Los Angeles though, and Matthew Rhys is always good.

  76. 76.

    JMG

    The first episode was so slow as to lose me. I didn’t see last Sunday, but was assured by my family it was much better. Won’t be able to watch tonight, TV preempted for another Hamilton binge by the others in this home.

  77. 77.

    trollhattan

    It does not help that I expect Philip Jennings to slip away and kill somebody while the main story progresses. I spotted the funicular in a flick featured in MST3K recently.

    Two episodes in it’s a hot mess but it’s hard to resist ’30s LA so I’ll keep with it. Left Coast time means in a few hours.

  78. 78.

    Steeplejack

    @WaterGirl:

    A fitting metaphor for the HBO series. Aside from the names of some characters and being set in Los Angeles, it has nothing to do with the TV series or (in my limited knowledge) the original Erle Stanley Gardner novels.

    I am watching it as a “stand-alone” series, in every sense, and so far the jury is out. A-list actors and lots of atmosphere, but the plot is taking a while to pull away from the dock—maybe spending too much time hitting every cliché in the noir guidebook on the way out.

  79. 79.

    piratedan

    Shout out to jackals and their recs…. finished River and Season 2 of Sex Education and am now working my way thru DCI Banks…so thank you

  81. 81.

    trollhattan

    @WereBear:

    I’m told it’s faithful to the Erle Stanley Gardner novels, which I was utterly unaware of.

    I just know the guilty dude stands and confesses at 5 minutes to the hour.

  84. 84.

    Another Scott

    @raven: I dropped YouTubeTV a couple of days ago.  I was on it from the beginning, but we just don’t watch enough TV to justify it.

    I have no idea what they’re thinking, increasing the price so much right now…

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  85. 85.

    Steeplejack

    @JaySinWA:

    I believe it’s the standard oath that military officers take, with the addendum of the nutty QAnon “where we go one we go all” chaser at the end.

  86. 86.

    cain

    I have Netflix (love love love) and Amazon Prime. I have Hulu for free with my Spotify account and um.. I get youtube red for for free because of google music.

    I think google music is becoming youtube music at some point. Google music kind of sucks, but love the fact that I can upload my music library.

    You can very easily go nuts with online services and everyone will start raising their prices once they make sure that you’re hooked. I trust netflix because they have raised their prices 2x the entire 20 year history and only by a few dollars and on top of that those extra bucks went to great new shows.

    Meanwhile Disney+ might seem cheap but you can bet your bottom dollar that it’s going go up in price at some point.

  88. 88.

    zhena gogolia

    We finished watching Hamilton last night. What a masterpiece. I never get tired of it. It’s just as relevant to the present moment (“Rise up!”) as it was to the Obama era.

  89. 89.

    WereBear

    @Sab: So far I like it but, like you, I do not know why they called it Perry Mason.

    I’d have been okay with a title card that said something like, “Before he defended the innocent, he knew what it was like to feel betrayed…” and bang! We have backstory.

    Instead, we spent half the show trying to figure out WHY they called it Perry Mason and saying stuff like “He’s not even a lawyer!” and “That’s Della Street?”

    @trollhattan: I’m told it’s faithful to the Erle Stanley Gardner novels, which I was utterly unaware of.

    I suspect, should it roll on, he will apprentice to the lawyer and study on his own for the bar. It’s how Gardner did it, and was still legal to do it that way.

  90. 90.

    WaterGirl

    @trollhattan: You’ll have to come back and let us know what you think of tonight’s episode.  i thought episode 1 was okay, episode 2 was very good, I thought, and now I’m invested in the story.  i can’t wait for tonight’s episode.

  91. 91.

    Miss Bianca

    @Frankensteinbeck: Reminds me of a story I heard about Townes Van Zandt, who was playing a club somewhere, and during a break in the action, some woman in the audience called out: “Play some *happy* songs!”

    Without missing a beat, apparently, he leaned into the microphone and cracked, “these *are* the happy songs, darlin’!”

  92. 92.

    WaterGirl

    @Steeplejack: I do see it as a stand-alone story, also, but after episode 2 I could see a dotted line that could end up with Paul Drake and Perry Mason becoming top tier in their professions.

    I definitely felt like you did after episode 1, but I think the story itself got legs in episode 2, and it seems like maybe you think it’s not there yet.

  93. 93.

    cain

    @WaterGirl:

    Looks like a combination of james cagney gumshoe detective with court hi jinks. Kind of sad that they removed the court room drama.

    But I can sort of understand – I mean we did a lot of that in the 90s. The Practice and others. But you know we live in a new age and there are all kinds of new social things that the law needs to address.

    Why go back to the 1930s? We got plenty of complexity right here and now.

  94. 94.

    WaterGirl

    @Julia: I think Perry will remain a P.I. through all 8 episodes of the series.  But if they want to do more seasons, say with a new case but with the same characters, eventually I could see him becoming successful.

  97. 97.

    WaterGirl

    @Frankensteinbeck: I was beyond pissed!  (I still am a little, and I am not normally a grudge-holder.)  It seems I can forgive normal things, but not things like being a right-wing overly conservative person.

  98. 98.

    WaterGirl

    @Kathleen: oooh, what trailers and what explanations from Matthew Rhys?

    I have not watched Succession, but it’s on my list.  There were so many great suggestions last Sunday.

  99. 99.

    WaterGirl

    @Kathleen: I replied to you at #60 before seeing this one.  No, I have not watched any of the trailers.  Is the HBO site the best place to find them?

    I cannot get a bead on Tatiana’s character yet.  Not at all.

  100. 100.

    Steeplejack

    @WaterGirl:

    In what parallel universe does Paul Drake go from being a black beat cop in the 1930s to a “top tier” private detective? Best-case scenario, he ends up as Easy Rawlins in the Walter Mosley novels.

    That is some serious bending to make this thing fit the Perry Mason “canon,” no matter how that is construed.

  103. 103.

    WaterGirl

    @jeffreyw: I had to stop watching The Expanse because so much time would elapse between seasons that I had trouble remembering the details of all the different worlds.  And characters.

  105. 105.

    WaterGirl

    @Anya: I have no idea what to think about the church at this point.

    Loved it last week that after the sermon, Tatiana sat down and the  church elder said “What was that?!!?!!”

  106. 106.

    WaterGirl

    I got a phone call and was late getting back to the thread.  I see that I have been talking to myself for the past 15 minutes!  :-)

  107. 107.

    Kropacetic

    So, my “libertarian*” friend just went on a rant how people who believe like I do should be systematically killed or at least traded away to other countries for people who share “American values.”

    Conversation ended with my phone blocked, but I still have the Netflix password.  So win.

    *Term authoritarians have claimed for themselves in Orwellian fashion

  108. 108.

    Steeplejack

    @Kropacetic:

    Whoa, I thought libertarians were all supposedly “live and let live” types. You know, respecting everybody’s liberties, not just their own. Hmm.

  109. 109.

    Mary G

    I watched the first two or three episodes of Schitt’s Creek today and didn’t really love it. Probably because I was such a crazed fan of SCTV back in the day and had unmeetable expectations for it. Does it get better?

  114. 114.

    Kropacetic

    @WereBear: His account. Finishing “Carole and Tuesday” hopefully before he decides to take action.

    @Steeplejack: Whoa, I thought libertarians were all supposedly “live and let live”

    I live and let me live.

  116. 116.

    Yutsano

    @JaySinWA:  I took that oath. You have no idea how much that pisses me off that Flynn has corrupted it. I hope someone in the DoD is taking a really close eye at this, because If he broke something in the UCMJ I want his stars and his pension.

  117. 117.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    We got a month of Disney+ to watch Hamilton, so we’re looking at other stuff too. We just watched “The Rise of Skywalker,” which we’d never seen. Mr DAW kept asking me if I was sure that Kylo Ren and Ray weren’t brother and sister. Then at the end, he was sure Ray was Luke’s daughter. So I’d say there was too much going on unless you’d closely followed the story til now.

  122. 122.

    CaseyL

    I was mildly intrigued by the new Perry Mason – mostly because I like Matthew Rhys Evans – and I thought the trailers made it clear the program was a prequel.

    However, I don’t have HBO and am not sufficiently intrigued to get it (I’ve actually stopped watching TV altogether).  Maybe I’ll tune in when the whole season is available to binge watch.

    Just finished watching Hamilton for the second time.   Still love it.  Just blown away by the adventurous choice of music genre(s), the snap-quick staging, the sheer excellence of everyone’s performance.

  125. 125.

    geg6

    @Sab:

    Because it is more true to the original novels.  The tv show was not very true to Earle Stanley Gardner’s novels other than the characters’ names and their general jobs.  The novels are more noir, much like this HBO series.  And if they start with the one case a week shit, I’m out.  I don’t watch that crap for free on broadcast tv and I sure as hell am not paying for HBO for that.

  127. 127.

    Miss Bianca

    @John Revolta: No, I will have to watch it, thanks! : )

    Haven’t been playing any music at all lately, you’d think I’d be taking this time I can’t get together with band mates or play gigs to do some of that all-important woodshedding, wouldn’t you?

  128. 128.

    Kropacetic

    @MattF: OT. Yes, Michael Flynn is nuts.

    It’s an easy jump to pledge an oath to a group of loony conspiracy theorists when they’re your most ardent defenders and you happen to also be a loony conspiracy theorist.

  130. 130.

    John Revolta

    @Miss Bianca: It’s just a short clip. It relates to your story about Townes.

    They opened up the bars here last week. They’re actually having music in the pub we usually play at. I told the guys that it’d be some time before I felt safe singing and playing wind instruments in a pub full of drunken revellers thank you very much!

  131. 131.

    JaySinWA

    @Steeplejack: I don’t have it. Cosplay is one thing, but are these people proclaiming they have some office in Q-anon, or Flynn’s forces? Is he looking to command Q-anon/digital soldiers in some militia sense? Setting up for a coup/revolt when Trump fails?

    @Yutsano: I do hope they keep an eye on him. Especially if the dismissal ploy works.

  132. 132.

    Steeplejack

    @geg6:

    Because it is more true to the original novels.

    Puh-leeze. The original novels, which started in 1933, were pulp, not noir, and from the very first Mason was a successful lawyer, Della Reese was his secretary, and Paul Drake was a private detective (I don’t remember how successful). To say this HBO series is more true to the origins than the ’50s TV series is a big stretch.

  135. 135.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    @Dorothy A. Winsor:

    We watched Hamilton last night. I was prepared to be underwhelmed, but I found it incredibly moving, and took the opportunity to refresh my own knowledge of the central figures and the era.

  137. 137.

    Kay

    @MattF:

    Q is the new base of the GOP. I thought the Republican Party couldn’t get worse but apparently it can- much, much worse.

  138. 138.

    Kropacetic

    @Kay:Q is the new base of the GOP. I thought the Republican Party couldn’t get worse but apparently it can- much, much worse.

    Fewer, worser Republicans.  One can hope they’re fewer.

  139. 139.

    Viva BrisVegas

    @Steeplejack: I think they’re just pledging allegience to the QAnon cause. Don’t overthink it.

    Now you’ve got me thinking, just what the hell is the QAnon cause?

    As for Perry Mason, I’m not too fussed that they retrofitted an old TV character (derived from even older movies and books) that barely anybody remembers, into what is shaping up to be some nice LA noir. The character could be an earlier incarnation of Sam Spade or Philip Marlowe and I can’t see how it would make any difference to the story.

  141. 141.

    Mike in NC

    @Kay: I have a crisp $50 bill that bets Fat Bastard will wear full Klan regalia at his next hate rally.

  142. 142.

    Miss Bianca

    @John Revolta: Oh, yeah, that’s funny!

    We tell newbies to Irish music that you can usually tell the difference between a war song and a love song because the war songs will sound more upbeat. ; )

  144. 144.

    Mary G

    Hollywood Reporter describes death of healthy man from COVID19 (trigger warning: gruesome details)

    Nick Cordero, the charming Tony-nominated actor known for his work in Bullets Over Broadway, Waitress and A Bronx Tale the Musical, died Sunday after a grueling battle with the coronavirus, his wife announced. He was 41.

    Since being diagnosed with what was thought to be pneumonia in late March, the Canadian actor spent weeks in intensive care at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, had his right leg amputated, lost more than 60 pounds and was hoping to receive a double-lung transplant.

     

    He was in a world class hospital not overrun with patients for 94 days. I don’t wish the virus even on the president, but everyone trying to enter a bar without a mask should have to read this first.

  146. 146.

    Martin

    I posited some years ago that streaming service prices would go up substantially. As a general rule, industries don’t give up money. Studios and networks were getting around $100/household in the US under the old cable model, and whatever new model developed would eventually wind up at or above the same number, and sure enough, it is.

    The only way that changes is if someone new to the industry arrives with a different way of doing things, but the cost of producing shows simply by shifting them from Paramount to Netflix isn’t going to change. They might also change how they get that money (ads vs subs) but trust that at the end of the day, they’ll get paid roughly  the same amount they were getting paid before. Spielberg isn’t about to start making movies on a $5M budget.

  147. 147.

    Steeplejack

    @Viva BrisVegas:

    It doesn’t make any difference to the story. They’re just free-riding on the Perry Mason name for no reason that I can see. If anything, it’s more like a reboot of, or prequel to, J.J. Gittes, the detective from Chinatown.

  149. 149.

    Miss Bianca

    @WaterGirl: OK, so I’ve just watched the trailer and I find it intriguing but kind of confusing. Probably not ever going to end up seeing it unless/until it comes out on DVD sometime.

  150. 150.

    Kay

    @Mike in NC:

    Q is like the klan in that they seek police power. 90% of their rants involve charging people they dislike with crimes and imprisoning them. They believe they are secret police-  so secret that Trump can’t even reveal he has them.

    One of them tore up a mask display at a Target – police took her into custody but I think it’s a psych eval hold rather than an arrest. They “pink slipped” her, as they say in Ohio.

  151. 151.

    mad citizen

    @Mary G: This is sad.  I didn’t know Nick Cordero’s acting work, but  I listen to Little Steven’s Underground Garage on XM radio, and at 6 pm every day Little Steven had a message and they played a  song Nick had done a few years ago called “Live Your Life”.

  152. 152.

    mrmoshpotato

    @NotMax:

    Nah, something more subtle.

    Like a stars ‘n’ bars onesie.

    Would he forego the Klan dunce hood because it would fuck up his orange face?

  153. 153.

    Kropacetic

    @Viva BrisVegas: The character could be an earlier incarnation of Sam Spade or Philip Marlowe and I can’t see how it would make any difference to the story.

    But the canon…

  155. 155.

    Kay

    The change with Q is there are enough of them now that they’re starting to show up in real life. They’re not just a quarter of the attendees at Trump rallies anymore. Now they’re taking the show out to the general public.

    NOT going to be pretty.

  156. 156.

    Kropacetic

    @Kay: This Q shit is the first thing I think of when I hear claims that Trump is “saving the world.”

  158. 158.

    zhena gogolia

    @Steeplejack:

    Grantchester has picked up speed in terms of being entertaining. They still don’t bother to explain why Geordie involves Will in every investigation. Geordie is still great, and Leonard has been having some nice moments, which is about all I care about.

  160. 160.

    satby

    I don’t get HBO, cancelled YouTube TV today because of the price increase, and don’t intend to pay Disney either ?

    But I’ve been rewatching Lucifer on Netflix in anticipation of the next season finally being released next month.

  162. 162.

    Steeplejack

    @zhena gogolia:

    Glad  to hear it. I missed #2 because I had dinner at my brother’s house, then skipped #3 and #4 until I could get caught up in order. But I donated to my local PBS station last Tuesday and will use the Passport subscription to stream them, I hope within the next few days.

    And we’ve got a new season of Endeavour coming up, I believe! I need to get caught up on that going back to somewhere in (I think) Season 4. Shortly after Joan Thursday ran off.

  164. 164.

    Kay

    @Kropacetic:

    They’re going to cause more and more trouble for Republicans. There are now enough of them that they’re deciding GOP House primaries. They’re all going to have to endorse this insane made up religion.

  165. 165.

    Kropacetic

    @Kay: They’re all going to have to endorse this insane made up religion.

    Peak wingnut has to hit sometime, right?…RIGHT?!?!?

  166. 166.

    zhena gogolia

    @Steeplejack:

    Yes, I think that’s coming up right after Grantchester ends. An embarrassment of riches. Endeavour‘s last season ender was brilliant. I’m interested to see how they can top it.

  167. 167.

    Kay

    @Kropacetic:

    I confess I did not see this new horror coming. Did not know there would be a Donald Trump religion. It’s spreading like wildfire now. Has jumped the breaks and is burning in the larger GOP base. I suspect it’s raging because Trump appears threatened, along with the two stressors – Covid and BLM.

  168. 168.

    Ralphie Bruber

    New person here (I’ve lurked Balloon juice for years)… I’m only through EP 2 of Perry Mason (if my bandwidth holds, I’ll see EP 3 tonight). I’m liking the first two overall and Matthew Rhys is growing on me as a noirish private eye. One heavy vibe I’m getting, and maybe it’s just me, is the similarity to Babylon Berlin. Great War vet with ample ghosts set loose in sin city. Not that that is a bad thing, just similar… wonder if others have felt the same.

  169. 169.

    Steeplejack

    @zhena gogolia:

    I would caution against spoilers, but usually the gaps between seasons are so long I can barely remember what happened anyway.

    The lesser, Brit-centric PBS station (WETA-UK) has been rerunning Lewis, and they had the first episode last week. (They’re running them out of order, for some reason.) There was a tangential thing about high-stakes competition in a college music department, and there was a nice callback when Lewis noticed that an anonymous donor had endowed some stipend or award with the accompanying citation saying something about the recipient showing strong “endeavour” or some such. Meant to be Morse, I think. I explained it badly.

  170. 170.

    Kropacetic

    @Kay: Did not know there would be a Donald Trump religion.

    Cult.  “Religion” elevates its status too much.

  171. 171.

    Kropacetic

    @Ralphie Bruber: One heavy vibe I’m getting, and maybe it’s just me, is the similarity to Babylon Berlin. Great War vet with ample ghosts set loose in sin city. Not that that is a bad thing, just similar… wonder if others have felt the same.

    Haven’t seen any of these things, but I ascribe to the belief that most every story worth telling has already been told.  It’s just a matter of recontextualizing elements.

  173. 173.

    Ascap_scab

    Lawyers charge Breonna Taylor’s death part of a city land grab.

    Lawyers for Taylor’s family allege in court documents filed in Jefferson Circuit Court Sunday that a police squad — named Place-Based Investigations — had “deliberately misled” narcotics detectives to target a home on Elliott Avenue, leading them to believe they were after some of the city’s largest violent crime and drug rings.

    The complaint — which amends an earlier lawsuit filed by Taylor’s mother against the three Louisville officers who fired their weapons into Taylor’s home — claims Taylor was caught up in a case that was less about a drug house on Elliott Avenue and more about speeding up the city’s multi-million dollar Vision Russell development plan.
    …
    The warrants carried out in the narcotics investigation on March 13 were meant to target one of the “primary roadblocks” to the development: A man named Jamarcus Glover, according to the complaint.
    …
    “Breonna’s home should never have had police there in the first place,” the attorneys wrote in the filing. “When the layers are peeled back, the origin of Breonna’s home being raided by police starts with a political need to clear out a street for a large real estate development project and finishes with a newly formed, rogue police unit violating all levels of policy, protocol and policing standards.

  174. 174.

    PJ

    @mad citizen: “Everything is Free” is a lament.  The big acts remained largely unaffected by filesharing – they could just up their ticket prices by $50 and people would still show up – but many marginally “successful” musicians who could make a middle class living writing and playing on records could no longer do that.  Some of those have continued making vital music, but it’s in their spare time, after their day jobs.

    Production of TV and movies is at least one-two degrees of magnitude more expensive than making a record.  By calling in a lot of favors, and with a lot of preparation, you can cut a good sounding record for $10,000.  (You can do it for $1, too, but that’s only if you don’t pay anyone anything and borrow all your equipment for free.)  You can make a microbudget “walking and talking” picture for $100,000, by basically paying everyone minimum wage, but anything aimed outside of the “art house” crowd is going to cost you $1,000,000 and up for an hour or two of a television program or a movie.

    It’s a pain in the ass to pirate whole movies or TV seasons, in good quality, whereas an MP3 album can be downloaded in a minute or two.  People are lazy, and will spend $15/month for a streaming video service, when they wouldn’t do that for streaming music, which is mostly used as background noise, because they want something new and exciting to keep them occupied.  So, while I think there will be some winnowing out and/or consolidation among streaming services (particularly the ones which seem to have no idea what they are doing, viz., Apple), I think most American households will keep subscribign to 2-3 out of sheer laziness.

  175. 175.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @evodevo:

     (My father used to fall asleep in front of the console TeeVee and then wake up at the end and ask us what went on lol)

    “Perry Mason won again, Dad”

  177. 177.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Kay:

    This does make me concerned. Along with fascist recruiting going on the internet by roping unsuspecting people in to gradually radicalize them, I worry someday soon a critical mass could be hit and our political system could be irreparably broken

  179. 179.

    lofgren

    My wife’s current theory is that Mason was already working as an attorney before he went away to the war. He was one of the associates in Jonathan & Associates. When he got back from the war, he was disillusioned due to his own court martial and suffering from PTSD, so he quit the law. Jonathan graciously gave him a job as a private investigator. At some point later in the series, Jonathan will be unable to continue as the defense attorney, either due to his creeping forgetfulness that they have been hinting at (he couldn’t remember his own client’s plea!) or due to being dead. Mason will have to step back up to the bar, as it were, and take over for the court room drama that will probably occupy the last two episodes.

    What I can’t figure is how Tatiana Maslany’s character fits in. She seems like a pretty big start to put in what has so far been a fairly meaningless supporting role. If she doesn’t have anything to do with the crime, then this seems like a pointless subplot. But why would she have anything to do with the crime? The church already has its hooks into the rich dad and $10,000 is chump change for a successful prosperity preacher. I’m assuming that the police are covering up for somebody more powerful, which means that the motive probably isn’t the money. But the only other motive I can figure is that the smarmy announcer guy who works for the church wanted to ruin the rich father’s status with Maslany’s character by revealing that he had a bastard son. But that seems like quite a stretch, and is based only on the amount of focus that they have given the announcer guy compared to other tertiary characters.

  180. 180.

    David

    @zhena gogolia: I just watched the entire 9 seasons of perry mason, plus all the tv movies, 30 in total. What a massive undertaking. Now I miss PERRY. And this new show is so different but I like it nonetheless. 301 total episode/movies!

  181. 181.

    prostratedragon

    @Ascap_scab:
    The urban land assembly process is often a vicious thing, especially where built as opposed to undeveloped land is concerned. Actually this is not tangential to the subject of Perry Mason, as the old tv show cases often involved land assembly in the growing Los Angeles in some way.

    Some day, some intrepid soul should lay out ULA either in documentaries, or some good detective/thriller fiction.

  182. 182.

    fancycwabs

    I started out thinking EB might be offed by Ennis (if James Ellroy has written it, this would clearly be how it would play out–it owes a certain debt to Ellroy’s vision of noir LA nonetheless), but it looks like he’s just gonna succumb to his dementia now.

    Knowing Della, Drake, and Mason are core players in the previous iterations leads me to be curious about how they get to the starting lines (I mean, Della’s pretty straightforward, but it will be curious to see how Mason and Drake get from their current positions to the roles they traditionally held in the series–if they actually make it there.)

    I make Baggerly for the bad guy, ultimately–he’s got the “real estate scheme / private shame with bastard son / religious hypocrite / played by an actor with more celebrity than the role currently needs, but will be important when the big villain speech needs to be recited” thing going.

    I do want to see a spin off series just focused on Jefferson Mays as the coroner, tho.

  186. 186.

    WaterGirl

    @lofgren:

    My wife’s current theory is that Mason was already working as an attorney before he went away to the war. He was one of the associates in Jonathan & Associates. When he got back from the war, he was disillusioned due to his own court martial and suffering from PTSD, so he quit the law. Jonathan graciously gave him a job as a private investigator. At some point later in the series, Jonathan will be unable to continue as the defense attorney, either due to his creeping forgetfulness that they have been hinting at (he couldn’t remember his own client’s plea!) or due to being dead. Mason will have to step back up to the bar, as it were, and take over for the court room drama that will probably occupy the last two episodes.

    Oh, I love that theory!

  187. 187.

    WaterGirl

    @lofgren:

    What I can’t figure is how Tatiana Maslany’s character fits in.

    I haven’t figured that out, either.  The whole church thing leaves me perplexed.  And frankly, that’s the least interesting part of the show for me.  I agree with you that it’ can’t be a throwaway subplot or Tatiana wouldn’t be playing the role.

  189. 189.

    fancycwabs

    @WaterGirl: the theory I just came up with is that Sister Alice knows quite a bit more about the Baggerly thing than she lets on, and will use the “resurrection” as a stunt to catch the conscience of the king, as it were–and may suffer as a result (easily tampered-with intravenous drugs were used in at least one attempted murder I almost witnessed once).

    Not sure about the blood in the sink though. Usually that’s shorthand for a character’s got tuberculosis instead of just not flossing, but I don’t know enough diseases to name one marked by cognitive decline and bleeding gums.

  190. 190.

    fancycwabs

    (For the curious who read down 189 comments to read the words “attempted murder,” it’s the case detailed here. I’m the “hospital visitor who said the man ran for the stairwell.”)

  191. 191.

    WaterGirl

    @fancycwabs: I think you’re right that Sister Alice knows quite a bit more – about a lot of things – than we are currently aware of.

    I wonder if the experience she alluded to (when talking in the cell with the mother whose baby was murdered) – where a man lied/took advantage/we don’t exactly know the details –I wonder if the man was Baggerly, the father.

  193. 193.

    fancycwabs

    @WaterGirl: It gets weirder! The would-be killer in this case had a daughter who, ten years later, hired someone to kill her husband!

    I would hope the writers wouldn’t fall into the trap of making Baggerly the only bad person in existence who is behind all the bad things happening in the world, but it is HBO, and sometimes they’re bad about liking those kinds of stories (cf. Sharp Objects, True Detective) It’s okay for Sister Alice to have real, related trauma without it occurring at the hands of the big season villain. Then again, I guess it satisfies a narrative need to wrap things up nice and tidy in case they don’t get a Season 2.

  195. 195.

    lofgren

    @WaterGirl: Another piece that we are currently missing is that Mason’s investigation so far has revealed that Gannon was boring and kind of a self-righteous dick. They implied that the relationship between him and the mother was not as it seems.

    So, the money was not the motive.

    Gannon was either not the self righteous prick he appeared to be, or seriously backslid into his criminal ways, or (most likely) was blackmailed or otherwise forced to reach out to the Polack kidnappers in order to execute the crime.

    Sister Alice is involved somehow.

    What I can’t think of is how any of this benefits anybody. One possibility is that it doesn’t actually benefit anybody. The church is involved in some totally unrelated criminal activity – the real estate plot alluded to by Baggerly – and the kidnapping was a case of some unrelated third party trying to wet their beak, which the church is now trying to clean up without anybody cottoning to the bigger crime.

  196. 196.

    lofgren

    @fancycwabs: SPOILERS – There were at least two villains in Sharp Objects, one who killed her daughters and one who killed the other girls. And neither was portrayed as responsible for all the bad things in the world. Two serial killers in one small town is already a lot, even if they are related.

  197. 197.

    WaterGirl

    @lofgren:

    They implied that the relationship between him and the mother was not as it seems.

    Which mother?  The mother of the baby?  Or the mother figure in the church who seems to have more power than sister Alice?

    Other than that, I am still pondering your comment.

  198. 198.

    lofgren

    @WaterGirl: The mother of the baby. Note that she hasn’t actually copped to anything. When the husband asks her which bed they had sex in, she says only “It wasn’t like that.” The rest of the choir described his personality as “wallpaper” – not the kind of guy a woman plots to kidnap her baby and leave her husband in order to be with. She was also supposedly on the phone with him endlessly, yet we know she spoke on the phone with her mysterious caller at least once after he was dead.

  199. 199.

    WaterGirl

    @lofgren: I suspect romantic love, but not consummated, between Gannon and the mother.  I don’t think the mother was involved.  Maybe Gannon was plotting to get the money so he and the mother and the baby could run away and live happily ever after.

  200. 200.

    Droz

     I am new to this so help me out if I gaff too much. I think the new version is a nice twist on the old show. So we have feminist strong women who may be sexual just not one style, an Afroamerican PI who has a strong moral compass, and Perry was this lost wandering male with all the familial divorce and child worries, plus exe mother/mate burying him

    SPOILER ALERT

    and lastly the now dead lawyer who is a shadow in the twilight of his life. So I saw some comments as to the orientation of this film and what the heck are these actors up to…So tonight we now have Perry as the newly minted attorney passing his Bar exam ala Hamilton Burger sic. Nice to meet all you folks.

  201. 201.

    Droz

    I think the blood in the sink was a sign that his health was failing along with his practice and life was a good sacrifice to save an innocent woman….a little Biblical alliteration happening? just a guess….and the church involvement feels like a snake getting twisted into this broken justice system and poor innocent common people unequipped to do battle with the “money” people running the show. ie politicians, judges, Mayors, and the police. WOW where have we seen this in real life.

  202. 202.

    WaterGirl

    @Droz: Welcome!

    I am only partway through Sunday’s episode, so I’m not sure whether you are serious at the end of your comment or not, which is probably a good.  I’ll come back after I’ve finished watching it

    I added a SPOILER ALERT to your comment so people who aren’t current with the latest episodes won’t accidentally stumble on info they won’t want to know until later.

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