They decided to a semi-comic episode to lighten up the show a bit. I don't think the show needed lightening up. (I don't remember a funny Perry Mason episode.) This one actually comes off more like an episode of "Burke's Law". A good episode of one show doesn't necessarily make a good episode of another show and "Gideon's Follies" proves it.
A bunch of rather shallow upper-class women show up for a party at a rich man's apartment. They are greeted by his elderly butler and his attractive young new wife. They are, in fact, his old wives and are the only guests. They go on a treasure hunt which leads them to the dead body of the rich man. The new wife was the only one there at the time of death and is arrested. Lawrence Preston to the rescue!
He is convinced that his client isn't the only wife who had a motive for murder and he and Kenneth go around interviewing each of them, as in Burke's Law. Each is an eccentric of some type and are played by celebrities of various magnitude, (Julie Newmar, Eva Gabor, Zora Lampert, Gloria De Haven, etc.) Preston eventually decides that a trial with these ladies would be a circus so he holds a party instead! The Prestons then use party games, including charades to get the silly women to reveal more and more of themselves and their story so he can piece together who really did kill the old guy. It's just what Amos Burke would have done.
But on the Defenders, it just seems like an episode of the wrong show.
A bunch of rather shallow upper-class women show up for a party at a rich man's apartment. They are greeted by his elderly butler and his attractive young new wife. They are, in fact, his old wives and are the only guests. They go on a treasure hunt which leads them to the dead body of the rich man. The new wife was the only one there at the time of death and is arrested. Lawrence Preston to the rescue!
He is convinced that his client isn't the only wife who had a motive for murder and he and Kenneth go around interviewing each of them, as in Burke's Law. Each is an eccentric of some type and are played by celebrities of various magnitude, (Julie Newmar, Eva Gabor, Zora Lampert, Gloria De Haven, etc.) Preston eventually decides that a trial with these ladies would be a circus so he holds a party instead! The Prestons then use party games, including charades to get the silly women to reveal more and more of themselves and their story so he can piece together who really did kill the old guy. It's just what Amos Burke would have done.
But on the Defenders, it just seems like an episode of the wrong show.
