It’s been a while since I caught up with MATLOCK, and considering the season finale aired Thursday night on CBS I felt I was running out of time to be justified in giving it any attention at all. Maybe it’s because I’m actually a tad too young to be one of its devoted fans, a statement I’d be hard pressed to make about almost anything else on any screen these days.
Median age is apparently an extremely difficult data point to come by these days unless one has a license to parse the Nielsen database, which wasn’t always the case when certain programs wanted to make a claim that their audience was somehow more desirable to advertisers than others. But as broadcast television as a whole has now aged a lot closer to my demographic cell, no one’s bragging about that any more, and even a cursory though educated glance at MATLOCK’s numbers can reveal why.
Per the exceptionally valuable US TVDB website, said season finale reached 6.152 million viewers, of which a mere 643,500 were adults 18-49. Given that the show is a complicated legal procedural whose star is 76 years old, I’m going to take the leap of faith that barely a trace fall into the kids and teens demographics. That basically leaves us about 5.5-ish million 50-plus, and from decades of parsing individual program population curves that pretty much leads us to a median age of about 71. You’re free to peruse the entire season’s worth of data if you wish. I’m welcome to being corrected by anyone reading this who actually can still run a report (it ain’t cheap to do), but suffice to say even by today’s standards it’s an older-skewing show that I’m still on the left side of the midpoint.
But that doesn’t diminish the fact that the show has appeal and execution that would resonate with many of you who are farther to said midpoint’s left if you were open to giving it a chance. What its viewers learned early on was that as pre-existing IP utilities go, which has almost become the default qualifier to get anything produced anywhere in a traditional media company, MATLOCK was a quirky reinvention that took a character made famous by Andy Griffith in its original 80s/90s incarnation that skewed pretty darn old even then and reimagined it in the form of the accomplished but heretofore TV-unlucky Bates, whose previous efforts included the low-rated and (relative to its era) ancient-skewing HARRY’S LAW flop from David E. Kelley and the unwatchable Chuck Lorre Netflix “comedy” DISJOINTED. This time, the showrunner wasn’t quite as famous but the work was much more wrll-received. Among those allowing a victory lap to be taken was DEADLINE’s Rosy Cordero and yes, SPOILER ALERT should be plastered all over it:
Deadline spoke to series showrunner and executive producer Jennie Snyder Urman about the key reveals in the finale, including who the mysterious person was who hid evidence that could’ve saved Matty’s (Kathy Bates) daughter’s life, and how the events that unfolded set up Season 2.
DEADLINE: Jennie, you and the writers on Matlock did an excellent job of keeping us guessing until the very last moments-and some even after the reveal-about who hid the Wellbrexa files. What can you reveal about your technique? Did you always know it would be Julian (Jason Ritter), or did you consider others along the way?
JENNIE SNYDER URMAN: You know, a great writer’s room is my writing technique. We were sort of in between, a little bit at the beginning, considering between Senior [Beau Bridges] and Julian. We knew it wouldn’t be Olympia, but it would seem to be her at some crucial moments for Maddie, right before she got unmasked. Then the more we thought about it, we realized it had to be someone who would be really painful for us to discover had done this. Senior would have been the more obvious choice. As Olympia says, he’s in charge of everything, but it felt like [Julian] put the most people in the most painful situation, which is always good for drama. And you know, Julian, even though he makes these mistakes, he’s still so endearing, because Jason imbues him with so much heart, kindness, and sensitivity. You see where he tries, and even though he doesn’t always succeed, you’re rooting for him because he’s trying. It just felt like it would be painful to have him be the person, and how that would put Olympia in a really difficult position in Season 2.We’re digging through the spoilers in the file room, and going over what Matlock Season 2 has to answer for in the future.
If you couldn’t tell, Julian has officially lost the partner race. But seeing where “Tricks of the Trade” leaves him and ex-wife Olympia Lawrence (Skye P. Marshall), I’m not so sure his exit will be immediate… Thanks to her tenuous partnership with Madeline Matlock (Kathy Bates), the financial records were proven to not be the smoking gun.
However, a secret safe deposit box was revealed to her, and it contained the missing Welbrexa file. Acting as the only piece of evidence that could incriminate the Markstons, Jacobson Moore’s newest partner is now faced with a choice: her job/family, or justice. That question is to be determined, as our last image of Ms. Lawrence is her tearfully clutching the Welbrexa study to her chest, with no decision to speak of.
Like any good lawyer, I had to save the best point of order for last in my closing arguments. Another chicken that came home to roost in Season 1’s finale was the Matlock mystery surrounding the biological father of Alfie (Aaron Harris). When we last left the issue, Madeline and husband Edwin Kingston (Sam Anderson) had a fight about the matter, but didn’t pursue it.
Alfie, the enterprising young lad, made contact, and hid this fact from everyone until the truth came to call at the Kingston residence. With Madeline answering the door, a man that seriously looks like Milo Ventamiglia, or a hybrid of the This is Us star with Ryan Gosling, makes his intentions pretty clear. He wants to get to know his family, leaving Matlock Season 1 to end with Matty welcoming this man into the family home.
I have to admit, I was surprised by this turn of events, as it adds a new chapter to Matlock’s dogged pursuit of closure. And given what we’ve seen she’s capable of professionally to resolve personal issues, one only wonders where this might take her next.
And I’ll further add I’ve come to embrace more of the cast that merely Bates as a source of intrigue and investment. Ritter, in particular, shows a remarkable range of dramatic prowess that compliments the comic timing that he clearly inherited from his father John. And as Jason approaches the point in his life where we best remember his dad, he bears all the more resemblance to the Jack Tripper we once loved. At least, those of us old enough to have had the chance to. Which in this show’s case makes up pretty much most of its audience.
All this points to this show having the potential to be part of whatever CBS becomes going forward. Like a snake or a conch, MATLOCK has conclusively demonstrated it can regenerate itself even after its natural lifespan runs its course.
One can only pray the upper end of its audience will be able to as well.
Until next time…