DVDFile

Paramount / 700 Minutes / 1992-1993 / Unrated / Street Date: February 21, 2012

Yes, I know - it's all quite exciting: A new season of Matlock on DVD - what a dream! But seriously - not so fast. If the thought of sitting through Matlock: The Seventh Season sends uncomfortable shivers up your spine, go ahead and send your Matlock-loving grandma over to the DVDFile office - as was the case with other Matlock seasons on DVD, we've had it on for a few days now and remain surprisingly enraptured.

The key to this by-the-books crime drama is Andy Griffith. If the only image that pops into your mind when you read the actor's name involves Don Knotts, Opie and some fishin' poles, you very well may not have seen A Face in the Crowd, in which Griffith turns in a masterful performance as a man spinning quickly (and dynamically) out of control. I bring this up to highlight the fact that while Andy Griffith may be a lynchpin of American television in the 20th century, he was no simple Hollywood Squares boob tube presence - he was the real deal.

That being said, Matlock isn't exactly groundbreaking TV, but this Seventh Season set nevertheless brings us some beyond-capable legal drama that goes down real smooth. For those not in the know, Griffith plays attorney Ben Matlock, a dude who always gets his man (so to speak). And in Ben's seventh go-round as lawyer-in-charge, we get a bunch of extensive episodes here - there are no fewer than four two-part cliffhangers here (The Vacation, The Legacy, The Fortune, and The Final Affair), that offer up the series' most accomplished crime drama mystery to date. Sure, the one where Matlock meets a visitor from beyond the grave is pretty dumb (The Ghost), but otherwise, business is good here.

So, yes - I understand that young folks with any sense of hipness will likely avoid this Matlock: The Seventh Season box set like the plague, but one can't deny its power as carrot-dangling, effortlessly engaging mystery television. It may not be all that 'cool' twenty years on, but I'm serious: Tell your grandma she can come watch it with us - we like it.