Matlock! Matlock!

It usually takes the passing of at least several months in a given year before you can figure out what event will define that year most. Well, folks, it only took eight days to figure out what that event will be for 2008. That's because, just in case you live in a cave and haven't heard, "Matlock" is coming to DVD on April 8.

To the right, you'll see a photo of Tracy and me just moments after I made my daily check of headlines from TVShowsOnDVD.com, gasped, and said, "Tracy, look!" There it was—the news we have awaited for years: "From NBC to ABC to CBS ... Now Matlock comes to DVD!"

At this point, you're probably confused. Surely this is one of those tongue-in-cheek blog entries that Brian has popularized here at "Life at Luther." No, I'm serious. We are really excited about this. Well, Tracy is. I'm mostly excited for her. I'll explain.

When Tracy and I met almost six years ago, our first shared TV interest was "The X-Files," which, interestingly enough, was the first TV show to be released on DVD in season sets. Within a few months since we began dating, I learned that Tracy really liked another show about heroes in suits who solve mysteries. This show, however, tended to be enjoyed by an older audience. I was familiar with it because my Grandpa Don loved to watch it, and Grandpa Abe on "The Simpsons" did, too.

Tracy, it seemed, really had a thing for Ben Matlock, the feisty, banjo-picking, hot-dog-loving Georgian defense attorney played by the legendary Andy Griffith from 1986 to 1995. As Tracy would later tell the public in a brave article ("Case solved—Matlock's still No. 1") published in our final issue of the student newspaper at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay, it began one day during the summer after her junior year of high school. Rather than watch soap operas while eating her bowl of SpaghettiO's, she decided to give the syndicated senior-sleuth series a try. And amid the allure of the courtroom drama, Tracy found herself guilty—guilty of loving "Matlock."

As the years passed, the demand from the TV-loving public caused countless shows, past and present, to be released on DVD. And, even as almost all her other favorite shows, from "Full House" to "Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman," eventually had their DVD-Day, Tracy still had her heart set on her knight in gray polyester. "Why isn't 'Matlock' coming out?" she would ask. I didn't want to tell her that it was because the show was mostly enjoyed by old people, and old people don't buy many DVD sets.

I would always keep my eyes peeled on the TV-on-DVD news site, and my Grandpa Don in the meantime would record episodes from the Hallmark Channel for her, but it seemed like the day would never come. And we started to move on. Last year, I even changed Tracy's ring tone on my cell phone from the brassy "Matlock" theme to the Milwaukee Brewers' 1980s jingle. Yet Tracy never gave up hope—just last night, I heard her tell her friend, Pam, over the phone how she longed for Ben Matlock's home-video parousia. (Well, she didn't use the word parousia. And I probably shouldn't have, either. That was the tackiest, most awful reference that a seminarian could ever make. I'm sorry.)

And now we have a date. April 8. Season 1 is finally coming. It's just a little pointless now that, even on our meager Basic 1 cable package, we have no fewer than three TV stations that air "Matlock" daily. What's the point of owning a show on DVD when you can already watch it three times a day? Well, when you love so greatly someone who loves that show so greatly, reason gets ... well, out of order.