The game-changing twist at the end ofMatlock’s premiere sets high expectations for other reboots. The series is a reboot of the 1980s classic, which starred Andy Griffith as a small town lawyer who acted as an amateur sleuth to clear innocent clients of murder charges. Griffith was a beloved television star who passed away in 2012, so this expectedtribute to the originalMatlockwas one of the most anticipated series of the new season.
One of the major differences between the reboot and the original series is that the newMatlockcastis headed by Kathy Bates, thus swapping the gender of the title character. However, the premise of the newMatlockis far more than a gender-swapped repeat of the original show. The trailer suggested that the challenges a female lawyer faced in the workplace would be central to the series' premise, and thelast few minutes of the premiere provided an additional twist that helped separate it from the original series it is based on.
How Kathy Bates' Matlock Connects To Andy Griffith’s Show Explained
The Title Character Is Not Related To The Original Matlock
Kathy Bates' character was revealed to be named Madeline Matlock long before the series began, leading to widespread speculation about how this character would be related to Andy Griffith’s Ben Matlock. The original Matlock had a daughter, but her name wasn’t Madeline, so it remained a mystery how Madeline would fit into theMatlockuniverse, andit seemed likely that there would be a ret-con to make her another daughter of his or change the name of his original daughter.
Matlock Reboot: Release Date, Cast, Story, Trailer & Everything We Know
The classic legal drama Matlock is returning in a reboot with a brand new cast, and there are already a ton of exciting updates about the series.
Matlockwent for an interesting and creative twist rather than going the route of a ret-con. In the final minutes of the premiere episode, the series revealed that Madeline Matlock was a fan of the Andy Griffith series who had adopted the last name Matlock in tribute to his character.Madeline chose this name so that she could go undercover at a law firm that hid documents related to the opioid pandemic, leading to the death of Madeline’s daughter from an overdose.
CBS' New Matlock Introduces A New Ingenious Way To Approach Reboots
It Is The First Series To Not Fully Copy The Premise Of Its Precedessor
This game-changingtwist on theMatlockrebootwas a creative and unique way to connect the series to the original. While most reboots borrow the same premise but offer modern characters and storylines,Matlockused the original show’s premise as inspiration to create something new that is tangentially related to its source material. While Madeline has some personality traits in common with Ben Matlock, the series stands on its own because it is not a retelling of the Ben Matlock story with new characters.
In recent years, Hollywood has been criticized for being too unoriginal because of the proliferation of reboots and proposed remakes of classic television shows. However,Matlockdemonstrates that reboots can be creative, fresh, and original. Hopefully, future reboots of classic shows will follow its lead and create a premise that is inspired by the original instead of remaking what has come before.
