The Mentalist: Season 1.

I've been working my way through Avatar's (no not that boring movie about blue people, the other one) first book 'Water' (seriously why do they call each part a book? Is it meant to make us feel less retarded for watching a child's cartoon?) and I'll probably do a review of that soon (technically it isn't anime, so I'm still breaking no rules!) and I'm almost done with Bayonetta, so for now it's 'just another' TV review, enjoy!

Been a while folks, LOVEFiLM are taking fucking ages to deliver me my next DVD and I found yesterday it's something I don't want and I'll probably send straight back, so looks like it'll be a while until another movie review.

The Mentalist, like a lot of modern 'whodunnit's' is a basic cop show with a novelty, in the case of this we have the character of Patrick Jane who is a mentalist and uses his abilities to help solve cases which would be nearly impossible to solve otherwise, aside from that everything else here is standard fare.

The basic story is that Patrick Jane, back in his days of apparently talking to the spirits of loved ones, riled up an enigmatic serial killer known simply as 'Red John' and it cost Patrick his wife and his child. This eventually causes a chain of events which leads Patrick Jane to join a serious crimes investigative branch known as the 'CBI' and he basically goes from case to case hoping to catch just a glimpse of Red John because Patrick Jane wants vengeance.

And I suppose the greatest problem with this is it's a serial. A movie would be the perfect length for this story, it could be like a vengeance movie only with one villain rather than fighting against society and the judiciary system and it'd probably make a great movie thanks to Jane's mentalist 'powers' and the fact that really it was all his fault. Instead you get this 23 episode series which occasionally gives us a little more on Jane's hunt for Red John but mainly concentrates on showing off what Jane can do on rather average cases. Yes some of these episodes are chock full of twists and they fly along with you on the edge of your seat and tug at the heartstrings and all that but I only watched those episodes in hope that the next episode got onto the main point which I thought was meant to be the hunt for Red John but maybe that wasn't the point, it certainly didn't seem to be. It doesn't help that being a serial the inconsistencies really stick out, the programme will regularly jump the shark just to push the narrative in a certain direction and eventually you get tired of Jane's random moments of stupidity or rage that doesn't fit with his character at all.

Other problems include the fact that Jane across the serial uses his abilities less and less and towards the end he really is just deus ex machina and considering you named your show around your novelty neglecting it seems ridiculous. And the fact that this show feels really really cheap. It's pretty much a play, the whole programme is static sequences of people sitting around and talking and then an occasional chase sequence or location shot. It rarely uses flashbacks to give us something to watch as the people talk and this is fucking TV! TV isn't meant to be static...is it?

Oh and then, in the end, we finally get onto Red John, a whole fucking finale (finally!) centred around the guy and unsurprisingly in the end they get nothing, NOTHING comes from that episode. It leads them nowhere, looks like I'm forced to watch the second season even though I don't want to. Way to keep the viewers up, even if you troll us to do it.

But don't get me wrong, this programme does have strengths too.

Jane is a smug prick who doesn't give a shit about all this politically correct nonsense and even though it does start to get old, the first few times they use the sequence of Detective Lisbon doing the 'We're doing all we can' speech and then Jane interjects with 'statistically though, they're probably dead' just so he can get a reaction is really entertaining. Plus the programme is generally really well written and acted. The characters are all awesome and it balances it's emotions almost too perfectly.

And even though Jane's wit really makes the rest of the CBI obsolete (except for a few instances like that one episode where they explain Rigsby is the arsonist expert or Cho got his groove on or Van Pelt with the computer codes) his character doesn't blot out his 'supporting' cast. True Lisbon seems mainly there to be a love interest for fanfic writers but Rigsby and Van Pelt's under toned romance quite often becomes quite key, each character has their own personal gags and traits and so forth and true each character becomes an archetype for a show, but it's nice that they come across as actual characters rather than a few bland cops in suits who stand next to Jane simply to make Jane stand out even more. It's just a shame that when Jane's supporting characters do come into play it feels so forced, almost like they didn't want to and would rather spend more time making Jane look awesome. Plus the whole main cast is really really sexy.

So should you watch it? The main characters are great and for every dull generic episode there's one that is truly fantastical. And there is going to be at least one scene that makes you laugh out loud in every episode and I think that's a great thing to be able to do, especially since this is a programme about murder and serial killers. But there are more interesting whodunnit's out there like 'Lie to Me' with Tim Roth which uses it's novelty a lot better and I'd much sooner recommend that show.

Think about it!

-Locke.