Why Matlock Season 3 Won’t Release This Fall Explained

Matlock fans were distraught to hear that Season 3 of the Kathy Bates-led legal drama would have a midseason release instead of coming out in the fall of 2026. However, CBS had nothing to do with the delay, as program creator Jennie Snyder Urman has now revealed that she is the one responsible for postponing the show’s third installment.

Matlock boss explains why Season 3 will have a midseason release

According to the showrunner, since the upcoming Season 2 finale will finally wrap up the Wellbrexa storyline, she needed more time to come up with a new mystery for the third installment.

“I asked for it with the network,” Jennie Snyder Urman told TV Insider. “We had atalk. 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.”

Urman added, “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.”

Describing Season 3 as a “big reset” for the Matlock series, the veteran producer acknowledged that the shift to a midseason release would be “sad for audiences.”

Nevertheless, Urman also noted that the added time was “actually really good for me and the writers because 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.”

Jennie Snyder Urman concluded, “We have an extra long writer’s room before we go to camera, and I really want to do it right. The quality is everything to me.”

While the release date details regarding Matlock Season 3 are scarce currently, fans can look forward to the two-hour Season 2 finale, which drops on April 23.