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Robert Downy, Jr. to revive Perry Mason for HBO

JirinPanthosa said:
I'm curious why they need to use the name of an old series to make their new court drama. I never saw the original but is there really going to be enough distinctly carried over besides character names for it to have any more in common with the original than "Any old court drama"?
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The only distinctive feature of the series was that Mason always tricked the true culprit to confess while s/he was on the witness bench.

I don't know if after years of Law&Order this is a formula that can still work.
 
MacLeod said:
In the end it'll come done to how well it's execuded. Done well it might work.
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Obviously. But I think this trope could only work in simpler times. Really, in the old tv series the real culprit always confessed, episode after episode, even when Mason didn't have any incriminating proof.

Just. Don't. Say. Anything.
 
True that people now have seen a few too many shows where lawyers are extensively training the defendant what to say and what not to say to believe they would do that. Or, if anyone could be tricked into confessing, the interrogators would have already accomplished it.
 
JirinPanthosa said:
True that people now have seen a few too many shows where lawyers are extensively training the defendant what to say and what not to say to believe they would do that. Or, if anyone could be tricked into confessing, the interrogators would have already accomplished it.
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Perry Mason syndrome
The Perry Mason syndrome purports that, due to the oversimplified manner in which trial proceedings were presented on the popular crime drama Perry Mason, jurors who watched the program would enter trials with misconceptions about how the legal process works.[2] Some argue that the Perry Mason syndrome greatly reinforced the presumption of innocence of the defendant, which may have been problematic when the defendant was guilty.[3] Others argue that, because Perry Mason was often able to cause witnesses to confess, jurors would expect similar "Perry Mason moments" to occur in real trials as well.[4] This shifted the burden of proof from the prosecution to the defense.[4] In one case, a juror told the defense attorney that the jury had voted to convict the defendant because the prosecution's key witness did not confess during cross-examination.[5]
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Skipper said:
The only distinctive feature of the series was that Mason always tricked the true culprit to confess while s/he was on the witness bench..
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Heck, sometimes he tricked them into confessing while they were just sitting in the courtroom in the spectator's seats:

"And the man you really saw that night was . . .. " Spins around to confront guy in audience. "Walter Thornhill!"

"Yes! I did it!" Thornhill confesses from the back row. "And I'd do it again. He deserved to die!"

Seriously, maybe the new show will be based more on the original novels than the TV show?
 
Nyotarules said:
Are some folks really this stupid?
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Well, there is the CSI effect too...
Anthony E. Zuiker, creator of the CSI franchise, claimed that "all of the science is accurate" on the shows;[11] researchers, however, have described CSI's portrayal of forensic science as "high-tech magic."[12] Forensic scientist Thomas Mauriello estimated that 40 percent of the scientific techniques depicted on CSI do not exist.[13] In addition to using unrealistic techniques, CSI ignores all elements of uncertainty present in real investigations, and instead portrays experimental results as absolute truth.[14]

The notion that these inaccurate portrayals could alter the public perception of forensic evidence was dubbed the "CSI effect", a term which began to appear in mainstream media as early as 2004.[8]

Under this effect, victims and their families – and jurors – are coming to expect instant answers from showcased techniques such as DNA analysis and fingerprinting, when actual forensic processing often takes days or weeks, with no guarantee of revealing a "smoking gun" for the prosecution's case. District attorneys state that the conviction rate in cases with little physical evidence has decreased, largely due to the influence of CSI on jury members.[15]
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Seems strange to be on HBO, it sounds to me more like something you'd see on CBS.

I've never watched much of the original but it seems to me like more of a known name than anything else. Is there anything really unique to Perry Mason to otherwise warrant using that IP in a revival?
 
Mr. Adventure said:
Seems strange to be on HBO, it sounds to me more like something you'd see on CBS.

I've never watched much of the original but it seems to me like more of a known name than anything else. Is there anything really unique to Perry Mason to otherwise warrant using that IP in a revival?
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RDJ is probably a fan. I read on Wikipedia he had a Perry Mason film in development a few years back.
 
MacLeod said:
He could likely fund it himself if he wanted to.
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He could pay for it himself. And if he couldn't find funding, and he really, really wanted to do it, he might just go for it. But apparently there is an outlet willing to pay.

So why not let it stand on its own merit?
 
Mr. Adventure said:
Seems strange to be on HBO, it sounds to me more like something you'd see on CBS.

I've never watched much of the original but it seems to me like more of a known name than anything else. Is there anything really unique to Perry Mason to otherwise warrant using that IP in a revival?
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See above. The distinctive feature of the series was that Mason always tricked the true culprit to confess.
 
Skipper said:
See above. The distinctive feature of the series was that Mason always tricked the true culprit to confess.
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I don't think that's the distinctive feature.

It's part of the formula, but just as distinctive are that the show was a fusion of detective and courtroom drama, that Perry's client was wrongly accused of the capital crime of murder, and that it fell on Perry to discover the actual killer, which in the end he did.

Part of the subtext is therefore that, but for good people (like Perry, Della, and Paul*, and sometimes Hamilton, but rarely Tragg), the criminal justice system is flawed and would produce woefully unjust results. The confession generally comes only after Perry has put forth a logical argument that points to the actual killer as the only possibility, and it provides the closure to end each episode on the ideas that justice is restored and being served and that the system is not convicting an innocent person. Arguably, therefore, the confession is not strictly necessary to that structure, so long as it's clear to the audience that in the end the guilty party is caught and the innocent party is exonerated. What I mean is, the function of the confession is really arguably to leave no (dramatic) doubt that Perry has restored justice. Some of the best episodes even subverted that idea with false confessions.

All that said, many an episode seemed to end, except for its epilogue, more or less the way @Greg Cox described. :lol:

* - It's also worth adding that the rule had Perry, Della, and Paul pushing the envelope of what was legal in the interest of protecting Perry's client.
 
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I don't have any problem with a new Perry Mason, in fact it's probably time for a new generation to have a version. But as much as I like Robert Downey Jr, I can't really see him as Perry Mason.
 
It's true that, technically, Raymond Burr was not the "original" actor to play Perry Mason.

But his portrayal defined the standard as to how the character is perceived, especially in the climactic, gripping courtroom proceedings. This aspect was severely lacking in the earlier radio drama and movies, which were basically light-hearted adventure mixed with some soap opera melodrama.

To me, Perry Mason is a character and a phenomenon that just doesn't belong in the contemporary era. Make it historical with a Mad Men feel, and I would absolutely devour it. But there's no chance of them doing that, so I'll just ignore this like I ignored Dragnet with Ed O'Neill. :rolleyes:

Kor
 
They might make Mason more of a "Lincoln lawyer" type with a slew of personal issues rather than the cypher Burr's character was.This is a HBO show so expect layer upon layer of complexity.

Just thinking,maybe the show would follow an arc,a single murder trial over the course of a season.Just like that "Murder one" show.
 
Let's face reality, again:

Let us put aside the worthless internet-speak of "purists" and "fanboys" and whatever phrase or term is stupidly thrown around and see this more clearly: if these people had such good ideas and drive, they wouldn't have to reboot anything -- they'd come up with an original series that somebody would want to reboot 50 years from now.

This is purely to milk the nostalgia and name of Perry Mason.

I guess anything can be milked now. I don't know, but ten or fifteen minutes ago television that old wasn't considered still name enough to draw in people to milk. Are the youth really, I mean really familiar with Perry Mason? I doubt it! And the older fans are, let's face is, over time just plain dead for the most part.

Well, I guess it's possible to reboot "Wanted: Dead or Alive" or "black Saddle", or even "Tucker's Witch" at this point.
 
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