Matlock Season-Premiere Recap: Not What You’d Expect

Matlock
Pilot

Season 1

Episode 1

Editor’s Rating

4 stars

****

Photo: Brooke Palmer/CBS

From 1986 to 1995, Andy Griffith enjoyed one of television’s most impressive second acts, playing a wily southern lawyer named Ben Matlock. Griffith was already famous for his role as North Carolina sheriff Andy Taylor in the ratings-topping 1960s sitcom The Andy Griffith Show, which was still playing widely in syndication in the ’80s and ’90s (and today). But he’d struggled to escape the shadow of that series before Matlock came along. With his light-gray suits, hot-dog-heavy diet, and folksy demeanor, Ben Matlock connected with audiences immediately.

He also joined a long line of lovable TV mystery-solvers who are far…