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HBO’s Perry Mason trailer and premiere date for Matthew Rhys series

By Brittany Frederick

NEW YORK, NEW YORK - NOVEMBER 17: Matthew Rhys attends "A Beautiful Day In The Neighborhood" New York Screening at Henry R. Luce Auditorium at Brookfield Place on November 17, 2019 in New York City. (Photo by Mike Coppola/Getty Images)
NEW YORK, NEW YORK - NOVEMBER 17: Matthew Rhys attends "A Beautiful Day In The Neighborhood" New York Screening at Henry R. Luce Auditorium at Brookfield Place on November 17, 2019 in New York City. (Photo by Mike Coppola/Getty Images) /
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A new Perry Mason trailer is the first look at Matthew Rhys as the iconic character, and HBO has also revealed the Perry Mason premiere date.

Matthew Rhys makes a pretty darn good Perry Mason in HBO‘s first Perry Mason trailer, and it’s no longer a mystery when the TV crime drama will premiere.

“The way I see it, there’s what’s legal—and what’s right,” Rhys’s version of the iconic litigator says near the end of the Perry Mason trailer, a heavy jazz underscore creating a film noir mood.

This Mason, operating in Los Angeles in 1931, isn’t a criminal defense attorney yet; rather, he’s a private investigator.

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Another scene sees him being consulted by Herman Baggerly (Robert Patrick of The Unit and The X-Files); Herman hands him a paper with the headline “Horror at Angel’s Flight.”

Mason asks why Herman doesn’t just go to the police; the other man replies that he “doesn’t trust the Los Angeles Police Department to do the job.”

The investigation will put Mason on a collision course with Sister Alice, portrayed by Emmy Award winner Tatiana Maslany (Orphan Black). Viewers also get their first look at Maslany when Alice is seen surrounded by her congregation, while Mason looks unimpressed—or maybe suspicious of her motives.

John Lithgow (Dexter), Shea Whigham (Dirty John, Agent Carter), Chris Chalk (Gotham) and Juliet Rylance (The Knick) are also billed as main cast in the series, with the latter two playing Mason’s well-known allies Pete Drake and Della Street respectively.

The Perry Mason trailer certainly sets the tone for the upcoming drama, creating the atmosphere that one would expect for a show set in 1931. But TV audiences have seen more crime dramas with some kind of period theme recently, such as TNT‘s The Alienist and I Am The Night. The 1930’s setting isn’t what will make this show stand out.

It’s the cast, and the way they appear to have settled so well into their roles. We’re seeing Rhys and Maslany in their first live-action series regular parts since The Americans and Orphan Black respectively, and that creates some high expectations since they earned Emmys for those parts. But in the Perry Mason trailer, they’re not recognizable from either of those shows.

Rhys in particular has the world-weary, somewhat tortured mythos down pat. He’s immediately believable as someone who’s seen a lot of things, but yet can’t stop looking into the darkness. And that will be a wonderful contrast with Maslany’s character, who seems to be all sweetness and light, but ostensibly is hiding something under that outgoing exterior.

In addition to releasing the trailer, HBO has also confirmed that the Perry Mason premiere date is Sunday, June 21 at 9:00 p.m. ET/PT, which means the show will slide into the time slot currently occupied by Westworld.

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Robert Downey Jr. and Susan Downey are among the executive producers on the series that will definitely be taking Erle Stanley Gardner’s characters in a different—and exciting—direction. Be sure to keep an eye on this one in June.

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