'Matlock' Season 3 promises time jump as Matty and Olympia dive into gripping new case
'Matlock' Season 2 concluded on April 23, with a double-episode finale that finally resolved the Wellbrexa case. With the central mystery now out of the way, the series will head in a new direction in Season 3. The showrunner and executive producer, Jennie Snyder Urman, told Deadline after the finale that the show's next chapter will see a time jump. "We’re not going to pick up directly [after the Season 2 finale]. It’ll be six months to a year, I would say," she shared. She also told TVLine the time jump would be "six to nine months, something like that. Not like five years later and everything has changed. But we're not a direct pickup, like we were this year." 'Matlock' stars Oscar-winner Kathy Bates as the titular character, Madeline 'Matty' Matlock, who returns to work at New York's prestigious law firm Jacobson Moore in her 70s. Her unassuming demeanor belies her sharp mind, and wily tactics help her win cases. Matty works under the senior attorney, Olympia (Skye P. Marshall), and joins her fight for justice.
The series was renewed for Season 3 in January and is slated to premiere in early 2027, following a scheduling shakeup at CBS. On April 15, the network announced major changes to its Fall 2026 lineup, moving 'Ghosts,' 'NCIS: Sydney,' and 'Matlock' to midseason, along with the new 'Einstein' starring Matthew Gray Gubler. The first two seasons of 'Matlock' enjoyed a fall premiere, but the next season will arrive later. Its regular time slot, Thursdays, 9 p.m. ET, will go to 'Elsbeth' Season 4, which will be moving up from its earlier 10 p.m. slot to make way for the new legal drama, 'Cupertino.'
Urman revealed that she asked CBS to move the series to a midseason premiere so that the writers would have enough time to map out Season 3's storylines. On April 21, she spoke to TV Insider about the schedule change, "I asked for it with the network. We had a talk. I just feel like we had so much stuff to think about because we really landed the plane on this, and we really thought that was important because we didn’t want to keep dragging out the same story, and the characters have to get to someplace real emotionally. When we took this two-hour finale and really paid a lot of things off, what came with that was I’m going to need time after that to really build the architecture so that we have it for the next seasons. I’m excited about it, but I am also grateful because we needed a little bit of time."
Moreover, Urman assured fans that the long wait will be worthwhile, saying, "I want us to plot this new mystery and make sure it’s airtight. We had a lot of pieces going in, so we really had to create this new piece of it. I feel lucky that the network’s giving us time to get it right because I don’t want the quality to drop." The show's third installment will see a big reset as it will delve into an entirely new mystery that will see Matty and Olympia in a "new office," Urman teased while speaking to TVLine on April 23.
