In an episode of “The Simpsons” that first aired in the fall of 1994, Grandpa Simpson exclaimed that his favorite television show was “Matlock!!” Thirty years later, the show that The New York Times described as “endur[ing] in the cultural memory mostly as a punchline about shows old people like to watch” has returned.
The new version, which features Oscar winner Kathy Bates as star and executive producer, attempts to thread a needle. Its use of the “Matlock” moniker seeks to attract the senior demographic while using a faster pace and ensemble cast to intrigue younger viewers.
Folksy Attorney…
The opening scene of the show’s premiere episode provides a first look at the show’s premise. Bates plays Madeline “Matty” Matlock — “like the TV show,” she says — a senior citizen and former attorney looking to rejoin the working world.
Matty uses a combination of sweet talk and innocence to crash her way into a corporate law firm and the firm’s weekly partner meeting. (Unsaid throughout the entire episode is how and why attorneys at a corporate firm depicted as a viper pit almost immediately open up to Matty.) She deploys knowledge obtained via her guile to allow the fictitious firm of Jacobson Moore to win several million additional dollars in an out-of-court settlement.
But a Different Vibe
Matty then parlays that success into a temporary tryout at the firm, which plays out throughout the premiere episode. In her first assignment, she must try to salvage a legal case that
