Okay, this is Perry Mason, I grew up with this show, I know what the deal is. And it's got a lot going for it, as the cast was hitting its stride and really inhabiting the characters.
Of course, this is the sort of gritty, realistic...wait a minute, this is yet another darling, totally imaginary story where everyone is filthy with the stuff, except those who want it. Our defendant/heroine/nutjob is "Trudy," whose mom has died, leaving only $10,000,000 for Trudy who must now somehow eke out a living... Out of the past her alleged long-lost "father" appears from the mist, doubtless to help the poor flibbertigibbet "manage" her windfall whilst reestablishing the paternal bond.
Trudy accepts the guy immediately as her father without question, despite the dubious timing of his appearance. Her uncle Lawrence is not quite so gullible as Trudy, and he locates another pretender to the throne. Then, yada-yada-yada, Trudy gets charged with killing old uncle Lawrence, who either was a sweet old codger who doted on Trudy day and night or a nasty, duplicitous villain, I never did figure out which. Oh, and he was blind, which is a fact vital to keeping this rather creaky plot on its feet.
Okay, you know how you usually like the defendant, who you know is innocent and, just as usually, being outrageously tormented? Well, Trudy is someone I would've cheerfully seen convicted, innocent or not. This gal is dumb, dumb, dumb, and worse, prone to screaming and tears. A paper cut would put this lady down for a year. And, really, her acquittal is just a stay of execution, because I didn't see her lasting out the year before screwing up enough to get herself killed. Hell, five minutes of her and I'd have shot her.
But, in the world of impossibly wealthy beautiful people and unlikely plot twists that Perry inhabits, this is otherwise no better and no worse than the average Mason episode, meaning it's a treat. I remember when this show was running for the first time. I remember, too, that no one took TV seriously, we knew cops didn't really act like Joe Friday, and "gunslingers" weren't shooting it out in seemingly every town west of the Mississippi on a daily basis, and that blackmailers and B-girls were far less ubiquitous than the idiot box would have us believe. But it was a pretty good time to grow up.