Matlockis off to an exciting start, and it may have narrowly avoided a massive snafu by including a main character in the premiere with CGI. Kathy Bates stars in the series as Madeline Matlock, a humble lawyer with a folksy demeanor, based on Andy Griffith’sMatlockseries, considered one of thebest TV procedurals ever. In reality, Bates' character is Madeline Kingston, a wealthy woman raising her 12-year-old grandson after losing her daughter to an opioid overdose. Madeline’s covert mission is to climb the ranks of the law firm Jacobson Moore, which she believes is responsible for her daughter’s death.
TheMatlockreboot’s cast, therefore, includes high-ranking law firm associates, including Beau Bridges' Senior. Senior is one of three characters that Madeline suspects of hiding documents that would have taken opioid drugs off the market a decade sooner. As such, Bridges' Senior character is one of the most critical players in theMatlocknarrative. However, getting Senior on screen has been challenging fortheMatlockrebootleading to its season 1 run.
Beau Bridges' Senior May Have Been Added As A CGI In The Matlock Premiere
Beau Bridges Wasn’t Really In The Partners' Meeting
Matlockmay have added Beau Bridges to the premiere with CGI, or the pilot’s scenes were carefully sliced and diced in editing to include the character. Ahead of its September premiere,Matlockreportedly recast a characternamed Senior, the head of the Jacobson Moore law firm.Matlockcast Bridges to portray Senior leading up to the series debut, butSpotlight’s Jamey Sheridan played the character in the pilot. As such, viewers weren’t expecting to see Bridges in theMatlockpremiere, but there he was, standing in the partners' meeting with the rest of the top Jacobson Moore associates.
Senior [Beau Bridges] is presumably in the boardroom, but he’s never shown in the wide shot with the other characters.
Post-production editors may have added Bridges to the room with computer-generated imagery that superimposed him on the scene. Alternatively, Bridges may have shot his lines for the scene in the same or similar room, which was then spliced into the episode. Bridges first appeared at the Jacobson Moore partners' meeting, where Madeline asked for a job. Senior is presumably in the boardroom since he’s included in the scene, but he’s never shown in the wide shot with the other characters. Instead,the camera weirdly zooms in on Bridgesduring all his lines.
Matlock Needed Cohesive Character Representations
If theMatlockpremiere added Beau Bridges with CGI, it was to maintain continuity for the series. The fact thatMatlockrecast an original character before its premierewas initially a bad sign for the show, as it would have been quite awkward to introduce one actor only to immediately swap them with another. That said, CBS has heavily advertised theMatlockseries, so it makes sense that they wanted to do everything possible to create a cohesive offering, including maintaining any characters it introduced in episode 1.
Matlockalso seemingly reshot a smaller scene between Senior and his daughter-in-law, Olympia, played by Skye P. Marshall, which further incorporated Bridges into the pilot.
Matlock probably used editing tactics to include Bridges' version of Senior because reshooting the entire episode, or even certain scenes, to include the character would be expensive. Instead,Matlock,it appears, added Bridges into the group scene while potentially cutting Sheridan out. Bridges stood at the side of the room, and it’s unclear where Sheridan was initially placed, but the scene could have been cropped to cut him out of it if he was similarly placed at the side of the room.
Why Jamey Sheridan Was Recast As Senior In Matlock
Sheridan May Have Stepped Away From The Role
While CBS didn’t offer a reason for the recasting, the main reason was likely the series' timeline.The writers' strike complicatedMatlock’s premierefor more than a year.Matlock,developed byGilmore Girlsco-producer Jennie Snyder Urman, was initially granted a series order in May 2023 for the 2023-2034 TV cycle but experienced production delays due to the strike that pushed theMatlockpremiere to 2024-2025. Most actors could stay with the series during its year-long hiatus, but Jamey Sheridan may have had scheduling conflicts or reconsidered the role in the year it took to come to fruition.
TheMatlockpremiere will air on CBS again on Thursday, October 17.
Whether computer-generated imagery played a role or not, it appears thatMatlockhad a few tricks to swap Jamey Sheridan’s Senior character out with Beau Bridges inMatlock’s pilot episode ahead of the series debut. If you watch the scene back, you’ll barely notice that it feels like Bridges isn’t really in the room with the other characters. While it may never be clear exactly howMatlockincluded Bridges, the effort to do so wasn’t wasted.Matlockwas the biggest non-Superbowl CBS premiere in five years, and its debut episode garnered a rare 100 percentRotten Tomatoesscore.
Matlock
Cast
Matlock (2024) follows the return of Madeline Matlock, a brilliant septuagenarian, to a prestigious law firm. Utilizing her unassuming demeanor and astute strategies, she navigates the legal world to win cases and uncover corruption. The series draws inspiration from the classic television series of the same name.
