The new Perry Mason limited series premiered on Sunday night and it’s off to a pretty great start for HBO.
The Sunday series premiere drew 1.7 million total viewers, marking the strongest debut night of any series on HBO in nearly two years. As is the case with most HBO series nowadays, more than half of the audience came from digital viewing. Breaking down the numbers, the show drew 884,000 viewers for the 9 PM linear premiere, and an estimated 1.7 million total viewers across all platforms, surpassing such notable recent HBO series openers as The Outsider and Watchmen.
The Perry Mason limited series is a reboot of the long-running CBS drama. Matthew Rhys of The Americans takes on the titular role as a low-rent private investigator who is living check-to-check and is haunted by his wartime experiences in France and suffering the effects of a broken marriage. John Lithgow stars as Elias Birchard “E.B.” Jonathan, a struggling attorney and a semi-regular employer of Mason. Juliet Rylance takes on the role of Della Street, E.B. Jonathan’s creative and driven legal secretary. Orphan Black’s Tatiana Maslany plays Sister Alice McKeegan, the leader of the Radiant Assembly of God, preaching to a hungry congregation and a radio audience across the country. Chris Chalk is on board as Paul Drake, a beat cop with a knack for detective work and Shea Whigham plays Pete Strickland, who is hired by Mason as an extra set of eyes on his various investigations. Stephen Root, Gayle Rankin, Nate Corddry, Veronica Falcon, Jefferson Mays, Lili Taylor, Andrew Howard, Eric Lange, and Robert Patrick co-star.
