Focusing here on the PERRY MASON remake, which is part of Robert Downey Jr.'s mercurial production company. Apparently scheduled to make its HBO debut on June 21...

It appears that the writers decided to go back into the Great Depression (the dawn of Mason) to tell a harsher version of the ESG character's exploits than what has customarily been the case. This looks like an original approach to Mason, but what we don't know is how well the writers will handle the details of that story. Some of what will apparently be at its core will be a character drawn from Aimee Semple McPherson--an historical figure who also will be prominent in a completely different "noir-horror" series debuting now, PENNY DREADFUL: CITY OF ANGELS, which stretches the bounds of credulity by superimposing a "cosmic" overlay where dark angels via for the souls of men, with one in particular (Natalie Dormer in at least a triple role) "invading" the personalities of several pivotal female characters who sow discord in various ways. (The time frame of PD/COA is later in the 30s, and involves Nazi infiltration into America--a topic covered from a separate vantage point by another HBO series, THE PLOT AGAINST AMERICA.)

It seems as though everyone is working overtime to mine some variant of CHINATOWN's territory, and we will see if PERRY MASON is part of that trend. Hollywood is a little late to the dance in terms of allegorizing a government dripping with fascist tendencies, waiting until the actual election year to crystallize these analogies, but consider that the US endured four years of an insipid, wasteful war in the Middle East before a wave of "neo-noir critique" emerged in a significant uptick of dark, angry and brooding films capable of speaking to that moment. Today, however, we have only historical allegories--of which, it seems, PERRY MASON might be one...that will become clearer in a couple of months from now.