Series and movies are often produced in Hollywood around well-known intellectual properties because that way it is supposed to be easier to sell the projects to the public. It’s disingenuous at least for HBO’s Perry Mason, who adapted one of the most famous lawyers in television history with a top-notch creative team and, after two seasons, has been canceled due to lack of success.
“We are tremendously grateful for the remarkable work of Matthew Rhys and the unrivaled cast and crew of Perry Mason for their way of reimagining such a treasured franchise,” HBO said in a statement. The decision not to go ahead with a third season is not mutually agreed since, as executive producer Robert Downey Jr had revealed to the media, the intention was to continue production and shoot new episodes.
Live hearings allow you to understand why. If on the night of its broadcast, the episodes of the first season of Perry Mason moved between 711,000 and 1.1 million viewers in the United States, the second marked a minimum of 299,000 and a maximum of 455,000 viewers. These figures are not representative of its real success, since it is estimated that the first season rose to 9 million by adding the audience accumulated in the deferred, but they do indicate a loss of interest on the part of subscribers.
Perry Mason pales in comparison to other dramatic HBO bets broadcast in the last year such as Dragon House, The Last of Us, Succession or even The Idol, the series by Sam Levinson and The Weeknd that was battered by critics but which gathered almost a million on opening night. In addition, its ability to penetrate the cultural and critical conversation, which is one of the objectives of the HBO brand, was practically non-existent. Perry Mason was airing but no one was talking about it.
Paradoxically, the series had the ingredients to fit the platform. Matthew Rhys took up the character immortalized by Raymond Burr after winning the Emmy for The Americans and the cast was completed by respected industry actors such as Juliet Rylance (The Knick), John Lithgow (Dexter), Shea Whigham (Boardwalk Empire) or Tatiana Maslany ( Orphan Black).
Behind the cameras, Rolin Jones and Ron Fitzgerald adapted the character created by Erle Standley Garner in 1933, setting him in his original decade. Instead of treating Perry as a practicing lawyer, they chronicled his early days as a private detective. With the help of Tim Van Patten, a regular at the house, they gave the production a classic flavor: a sober and careful setting, adult themes and a leisurely pace that recalled, for example, Van Patten’s own Boardwalk Empire.
The adaptation, however, was accused of being slow to get off the ground, and when they finally tackled their more judicial facet in the second season, half the audience had disappeared. The growing interest from critics was too late to secure a third season.
