Perry Mason: Season Five, Vol. 1

Times Change, but Perry Remains
The fifth season of this venerable series, first aired in 1961, gradually begins to reflect the cultural changes since its premiere in the late fifties. In an anticipation of the Perry Mason returns series of the eighties, Perry now has an occasional assistant, a young law student whom he once successfully defended (just like William R. Moses' Ken Malansky). More traveling is going on, reflecting the wider world opening to Americans with the presidency of John F. Kennedy. Lt. Tragg is seen less and less often, usually replaced by Wesley Lau's Lt. "Andy" Anderson. Hamilton Burger is also seen only occasionally (fallout from William Talman's arrest on morals charges a couple of years earlier), and other prosecutors go up against Perry with the same zeal and the same results. To us males who entered our teens in the sixties, the cars are one of the obvious tipoffs to the period. One of Perry's clients tools around in a '61 Chevy, and Paul Drake's ride is a '61 T-Bird (presumably...

The Case of the Perplexing Plots
This is really a very disappointing first half of the 5th Season (1961-1962). Despite this DVD having one of my all time favorite episodes ("The Case of the Posthumous Painter") it has numerous flaws. First, Ray Collins (Lt Tragg) makes only cameo appearances, no doubt due to his ill health. He is replaced by Wesley Lau (Lt Andy Anderson) in the Case of the Malicious Mariner, just 2 weeks after having been the defendent in the Case of the Impatient Partner. Figure that! Then there is Karl Held in a recurring role as David Gideon who was introduced in an episode in a previous season. The screenwriters just don't seem to know what to do with him, sometimes he is just hanging around, some times using Perry's law library, sometimes coming up with a remarkable suggestion ("thermacouple") to solve a problem regarding the age of a picture. Mostly, he just stops the normal flow of a scene and the interactions between Perry, Della, Paul, etc. That is probably why his tenure was so short...

Episodes less seen
OK, now we're getting into the episodes that most of us haven't seen as often. I think with most syndicated shows (especially shows that were syndicated a long time ago), the syndication package is mostly made up of the first four seasons, and later episodes are shown much less often. I've loved the previous seasons, but I've seen most of the episodes many times before, and these seem less familiar. I don't think they are plotted as well as the earlier episodes, but the fact that I've seen them less often makes them feel a lot fresher.

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