Perry Mason: Season 1

"Although the hard-boiled sleuth shtick is aged... Rhys makes the part his own, the storytelling is slick, and the prosthetics team earns the worthy tribute of our vomit with some seriously nasty corpses."

"This time round the bedrock is corruption -- in the police force, politics, business -- making the stakes higher, and the gig so much tougher. It's an intriguing mix that's as intelligent as it is stylish."

"It’s an eight-episode season that feels like a long pilot for the real Perry Mason—a series that seems poised on the verge of existence, now that all of the characters (especially Perry himself) have figured out what they’re doing here."

"Few would’ve predicted that the new Perry Mason, debuting June 21, would turn out to be so timely."

"Perry Mason generally avoids feeling like an assembly line Cable Anti-Hero: Great Depression Edition. Much of the credit goes to Rhys."

"Over the course of eight episodes, the show delves into Mason's past while redefining him for a new age of television driven by complex characters, richly detailed worlds, and season-long storylines. It manages those first two elements so well that it's a shame it keeps tripping over the third."

"This new Perry Mason is filled with great performances (albeit not all of them belonging on the same show). It looks incredible (though also occasionally much more gory than it needs to be). But the story’s a mess — at once convoluted and a bit too dull to fill eight hours — and the idea of giving Mason the origin story he never had ultimately proves more trouble than it’s worth."

"Rhys deftly unfurls the enigmatic character layer by layer, crafting this degenerate into a more recognizable version of the legal icon revered for decades. The mystery of how he’s able to pull that off is far more compelling than the unsavory plot that strings Perry Mason along."