There is a definite formula established in Season 2 of Perry Mason. Someone comes forward and asks for Perry Mason, the defense attorney who is the star of the series, to represent them. Someone connected to defendant is murdered, and all evidence points toward them as the culprit. Someone else on the witness stand is always, always the murderer. Perry pulls a few tricks, always within the letter of the law, and brilliantly pulls his defendant out of the fire. This being a gaming review site too, I'll say that if you like Phoenix Wright, you'll probably be immediately reminded of it when you watch this show and get a kick out of seeing the game's great-grandfather.
It's the journey, not the destination that is important here. Within the set formula, Perry comes up with all sorts of ingenious tricks to get the facts he needs. That's the entertaining part: you start wondering "would that work?" quite often during the show. You need to exercise some strong suspension of disbelief sometimes, as Perry demonstrates superhero-like clairvoyance in solving these cases. He doesn't just have hunches, he seems to have everything figured out in advance.
This show is half courtroom drama and half detective mystery. I really enjoyed watching the "tricks" Perry pulled, in the courtroom and outside. Want to pressure your murder suspect into revealing where he hid the body? Buy mineral rights to his property and hire a bunch of guys to go digging for Uranium. Be ready for the shotgun your hot-tempered suspect will inevitably draw, and arrange for the cops to get there just in time to book him for his confession. Everything seems to work perfectly for Perry, but I wouldn't call the scenarios in this show any more implausible than most of the popular detective shows on TV today. Perry Mason is just, because of its age, a little less flashy and a little more dialogue-heavy.
Every episode is self-contained, but there seemed to be quite a few cases involving the wills of the deceased in this season. There was plenty of variety in the theme, so it didn't seem like too much of the same. Perry meets with a variety of different people in this season: an Asian caretaker stars in episode with the misleading title of "The Case of the Caretaker's Cat," a beatnik character plays piano in a comedian's home and seems to live in for just that purpose (did people really have live-in piano players?), and a stubborn playwright are among a few of them.
There aren't any special features to this DVD set, only a collection of previews for upcoming and currently playing CBS series. If you're coming in for the nostalgia factor, you only get what you expect. Also, although the front cover shows a colorized Raymond Burr, the show has not been altered from its original black-and-white format. The show sticks to its formula pretty tightly, so if you haven't seen Season 1, you won't be lost. The main cast remains the same and episodes are self-contained. This TV show holds up pretty well after all this time. If you give it a chance, you just may find out why the title of this series continues to be referenced in modern pop-culture, and find yourself entertained in the meantime.
