When they were casting roles for the original Perry Mason, the guy that played Paul Drake was cast as Mason, and Burr (who played Mason) was cast as the detective until Eric Gardner, the writer, the creator, SAW Burr - and he said "THAT is Perry Mason." This was Gardner's vision. Slightly, a tiny bit chubby, dark hair, big dark eyes, elegant and distinguished, THAT was Mason. The always losing DA was also perfect. The show still enjoys reruns. I watched as a kid but barely understood the legal ins and outs, and started to binge watch the repeats, which I now have on DVD, nothing cut out. I'm paused at season 6 but will continue when I have the time. It is excellent. You can't possibly have a better team than Perry, Della and Paul. Everything about them is perfect. The guy that wrote it ought to know, too.
This HBO thing? Nope nope nope. That is NOT Perry Mason. I'm watching, but it's not Perry Mason. It starts out he's not even a lawyer.
I see reviewers wondering why HBO called this Perry Mason. I can figure that out. HBO HATES the decent characters, Perry, Della, Paul, the various DAs, the cops. HBO hates it all. They relish in the hateful grunge we see too much of today. Also we know they did this to dupe viewers into watching the show. Perry Mason can be seen on MeTV but to see them complete, get the DVDs. The show was long back then,not so many commercials - and MeTV only has 1 hour to show it. They'd probably need 1 hour 15 minutes, or 1 hour and 30 minutes to show the entire episodes. HBO took a wonderful beloved show and crapped on it. That is what they wanted to do.