I usually wait until I’ve seen an entire series before reviewing a show, but “Matlock” is an exception. This legal drama starring Kathy Bates – which shares a surname and basic premise with the 1986-96 series starring Andy Griffith – looks too good to wait.

According to Nielsen ratings data, 7.7 million people watched the first episode, garnering the largest audience for a non-Super Bowl CBS premiere since “The Code” debuted in April, 2019.

Similar to her predecessor, Madeline ‘Matty’ Matlock (Bates) is a disarmingly genial attorney with a brilliant legal mind. Like many septuagenarians, she feels that her age has rendered her invisible. That’s what character-centric showrunner Jennie Snyder Urman (“Jane the Virgin”) capitalizes on: how older women are underestimated and overlooked. 

After the tragic death of her daughter from a drug overdose, widowed Matty is raising her 12 year-old grandson, Alfie Kingston (Aaron D. Harris). Declaring she’s in debt yet still skilled, Matty cleverly manages to land a job at the prestigious Jacobson Moore law firm, headed by Senior (Beau Bridges), his son Julian (Jason Ritter) and primary partner Elijah Walker (Eve Ikwuakor).

Matty is assigned to outspoken Olympia Lawrence (Skye P. Marshall), who takes on challenging cases that no one else in the firm views as profitable. To complicate matters, she’s currently custody-battling her ex-husband Julian.

Reluctant to have someone on her team who hasn’t practiced law since 1991 but desperately needing the help, Olympia partners Matty with her two ambitious junior associates: Sarah (Leah Lewis) and Billy (David Del Rio).

As more about her intuitive character is revealed in a surprisingly topical twist at the conclusion of the pilot, it becomes obvious that “Matty” is a savvy pseudonym for a woman using her work as a conduit for personal grief, along with a desire to rectify wrongs of the past, as she pursues a path towards right. 

Oscar winner for “Misery” and Emmy winner for “American Horror Story,” Kathy Bates is charismatic and compelling, working with a strong supporting cast.

On the Granger Gauge of 1 to 10, “Matlock” is an intriguing 8. Its premiere is on CBS and streaming on Paramount+.

Internationally famous as children and, perhaps, has-beens as young adults, talented youngsters can earn enormous salaries that shrivel their parents’ egos with much of their money spent as quickly as it was made. That’s all part of Demi Lovato’s new documentary “Child Star.”

In the opening sequence, Lovato reveals that – as a kid – she decided to be “the next child star,” thinking if Shirley Temple could do it, so could she. Encouraged by her mother, Dianna De la Garza, she began as a performer in beauty pageants. 

Despite extreme bullying from her peers at school, she had a determined drive, working on “Barney & Friends” at age six and then landing a plum part on the Disney Channel Original Movie “Camp Rock,” starring the Jonas Brothers. 

“We called it Disney High,” she recalls. “We were all about the same age, dating each other. None of us were in high school, so that was our experience of it.”

That’s also when/where she developed a serious eating disorder and suffered extreme exhaustion, juggling personal appearances, a music career, TV show and other projects – which led to a stint in rehab. She shares that stress with Disney co-stars Raven-Symone and Alyson Stoner.

“I looked at my success as my self-worth,” Lovato admits. “I had a really hard time differentiating the two, and I dealt with a lot of need for external validation.”

Asking, “Is the price of fame worth your childhood?” Demi Lovato interviews Drew Barrymore, who starred in “E.T.: The Extraterrestrial” when she was seven, and Christina Ricci, who found being in “Casper” & “The Addams Family” a welcome escape from her dysfunctional home life, referring to her physically violent father as “a failed cult leader.”

Plus there’s former Nickelodeon star Kenan Thompson – who went “from rags to riches and back to rags” – and JoJo Siwa, a tween phenom on “Dance Moms,” who posts roughly 250-300 times a day on social media.

Lovato has made other documentaries, detailing her experience with addiction, body image, self-harm, and other mental health issues, including “Stay Strong” (2012), “Simply Complicated” (2017) and “Dancing With the Devil” (2021).

If this topic intrigues you, find the book  “Twinkle, Twinkle , Little Star (but don’t have sex or take the car)” (1984), written by former child star Dickie Moore, in which he interviews Jackie Coogan, Shirley Temple, Mickey Rooney, Natalie Wood and Jane Powell, among others. 

On the Granger Gauge, “Child Star” is a cautionary, cathartic 6, streaming on Hulu.