CBS’ ongoing Matlock reboot is set in a world where the original Matlock TV show exists: Kathy Bates’ character introduces herself to her new colleagues at the law firm Jacobson Moore as Madeline “Matty” Matlock. “Yes, like the old TV show,” she added.
Some of the other Jacobson Moore lawyers caught the reference, but many did not. Surrounded by younger people in the office and on the streets of New York City, Matty feels “damn nearly invisible,” as she narrates, but she uses that inconspicuousness to her advantage.
The end of the series premiere, however, reveals that — spoiler alert! — Matlock is just an alias that Matty, whose actual last name is Kingston, is using to infiltrate the law firm and find the person she blames for her daughter’s opioid-related death.
It turns out that the new show’s lack of connection to the original series extends behind the scenes, as well: in a new Variety “Actors on Actors” interview with Billy Bob Thornton, Bates admits that she hasn’t seen much of the original. “I didn’t watch it. Everybody always asked me that — did I watch the show?” she told Thornton. “I watched a couple [of episodes] to see what I could get out of it, but our show is just so different.”
But originally, Bates revealed, the Matlock reboot has a much closer connection to the source material: it was initially imagined as a direct sequel to the original series — which starred Andy Griffith as folksy defense attorney Ben Matlock and ran for nine seasons on NBC and ABC between 1986 and 1992.
“I feel like, in one way, this part was written with me in mind,” Bates said. “Jennie Snyder Urman created it. And I heard, originally, they wanted to make [my character] Andy Griffith’s great-great-granddaughter. So she’d be 30-something.”
But then, as Bates related, Urman started brainstorming about the new Matlock while on a walk, and “it came to her that she wanted to write something about older women [and] feeling invisible.”
And thus a new broadcast TV hit was born!
