The Mentalist - Open your mind and engage your brain to have a hope of catching up (The Mentalist)

Member Name: LIZS383

Product:	The Mentalist
Date:	26/06/09 (19 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Puzzling, clever, well thought out, believable.

Disadvantages: Rigid structure

Having started to feel jaded by the classic crime dramas - much as I love them - I found this refreshing and more worriedly almost laugh out loud entertaining (given the subject I am slightly worried by the impact on my own mental state).

For people that have heard nothing of this (surprising - Five and their digi station Five US have gone in to stratespheric promotion mode (even doing an evening screening of star Simon Bakers old series - The Guardian - any way I deviate...), Patrick Jayne is an advisor to the CBI (California Bureau of Investigation), who seems to operate and solves crimes by delving in to people's minds and definitely avoiding Bureau protocols

The people:-
Baker - Patrick Jayne keeps agents Lisbon, Cho, Rigsby and Van Pelt on their toes throughout the shows, he is typed as a consultant acts like a mind reader/psychic but is supposedly just paying attention! Each plays a different position on his abilities and for the most part maintain a demeanor of total shock when he is right. Cho is stedfastly disbelieving of him, Rigsby in awe (and constantly fishing for tips to get together with Van Pelt), Van Pelt seems to me to almost adore Jayne whereas Lisbon tries to maintain order, yet frequently bows to Jayne's superior knowledge!!!

Plot:- I do find there is some rigidity in the plot - gruesome unexplained death, several likely suspects, Jayne picking the right one (often a fringe) right at the end and coming out with a perfectly legitimate reason to reach the conclusion. The only exception to the rule is the infamous Red John (allows deep emotive twist section and flashbacks - Red John killed Jayne's wife and daughter).

The set up is always dynamic as the scripts excellent at creating a tone and careful to allow for all the central characters to have sufficient input in to events. It is good in that the agents do take over the more physically active and violent scenes - taking the focus of Jayne

Educational value:-
Definition of mentalist at the beginning makes me laugh.

In summary I find this the Americanised version of Jonathan Creek - far more glamorous and far more high powered. If you like a puzzle or if you don't mind staying in the dark and connecting the dots after this is a fun and fast paced show to watch. Incredible levels of attention have been paid to the detail to make all the eventualities plausible.

Summary: Mental but good - whoever thought of this must have an interestingly compleax mind