• by Adam Buckman , Featured Columnist, September 20, 2024

True confession alert: When I make my bed in the morning, I watch “Matlock.”

I know what you’re thinking: This guy makes his bed? Yes, and so should everybody.

My morning “Matlock” comes courtesy of MeTV, that diginet compendium of golden TV oldies. “Matlock” airs at 10 a.m. Eastern each weekday. 

For the record, I have never watched an entire episode, no matter how riveting. Instead, I join it in progress and then bail in 10 minutes, usually to start writing one of these things. 

MeTV’s “Matlock” is, of course, the original, which ran on NBC from 1986 to 1992 and ABC from 1992 to 1995 -- eight seasons.

Readers should be well aware by now that a new “Matlock” is in the offing because the TV Blog has written about the show at least three times already.

But now, the premiere of the new “Matlock” starring Kathy Bates (photo above) is just two days away -- Sunday night at 8 PM Eastern on CBS.

That provides reason enough to dive into the topic once again with a single overriding question:  What makes the “Matlock” brand so durable, so fascinating and so captivating that it rates a reboot?

Based on my careful study of the original show, 10 minutes at a time a couple of days a week while tucking in sheets and fluffing up pillows, it comes down to story, story, story.

Do you think it’s easy to walk away from “Matlock” in mid-show before the resolution of the episode’s murder mystery? Let me tell you -- it is not.

Andy Griffith (above photo) played the lead character, Ben Matlock, an Atlanta defense attorney who represented men and women on trial for murder.

As mentioned more than a few times on the show, Ben Matlock charged a lot of money and his clients were well-to-do and often well-known in the community.

Like Perry Mason before him, Ben Matlock had a talent for digging deeper into every crime than the local police. 

He would then win his acquittals by presenting irrefutable evidence that someone else sitting in the courtroom was the real murderer.

The shows were straight-ahead mystery stories written principally by the show’s creator, Dean Hargrove, who wrote and produced episodes of other TV mysteries, most notably “Columbo” and “Diagnosis: Murder.”

And now, Kathy Bates comes to television with a new “Matlock,” in which she is the star of a TV series for the first time in her long career.

The fact is, the character and the scenario in the new “Matlock” are so different from the Andy Griffith “Matlock” that there was really no reason to name the new one “Matlock” at all, except as a publicity draw. 

On that subject, mission accomplished. The show has been written about everywhere, not only because Kathy Bates is in it, but also because the title provides an extra hook for feature stories.

In the old “Matlock,” Ben Matlock was this folksy lawyer with a southern accent and a twinkle in his eye who was underestimated by his adversaries until they went to court, where he was anything but folksy.

The folksy bit did not last long because everyone in Atlanta came to realize he was a shark and they no longer underestimated him.

In the new “Matlock,” Maddie is a former attorney who retired some years ago who suddenly wants to return to the profession.

So, with a little folksiness of her own, she insinuates herself into a New York law firm and earns a place there, surprising everybody.

But she is not what everybody thinks she is. She is a shark herself who has returned to the legal arena for personal reasons having to do with a grievance for which she seeks revenge. 

This storyline will persist just under the surface all season, in addition to other cases. 

On the old “Matlock” and so many other such mystery series that once crowded network prime time, the mystery stories all came to their conclusions before the final credits. 

This was part of their appeal. The mystery stories all succeeded on their own without the baggage of a season-long story arc. 

Or to put it another way: Years from now, will anybody be watching the new “Matlock” while making their bed?

“Matlock” premieres Sunday, September 22, at 8 p.m. Eastern on CBS.