Is the New Matlock Series Connected to the Original?
In a TV world primarily catering to the 18-49 age group for pricing ads, the fresh CBS legal drama series Matlock, featuring actress Kathy Bates who’s nearly 76, is bucking the trend, at least if we go by how its debut episode drew the biggest series premiere audience for CBS in over half a decade. In Matlock, Bates portrays Madeline Matlock, a character who was once an attorney but is now supposedly inexperienced and widowed, yet shares a surname with the famous fictional defense lawyer Ben Matlock, played by Andy Griffith in the original Matlock series that aired on NBC from 1986 to 1992, and then on ABC from 1992 to 1995.