Fall '08: "The Mentalist" Overthinks It
Seriously, did no one tell poor Bruno Heller that he was creating a police procedural for CBS? The Crimes Being Solved network has like nine of them already — CSI, CSI:Miami, CSI: New York, Numb3rs, Cold Case, NCIS, Criminal Minds, Without a Trace, and the upcoming Eleventh Hour — and except for various small differences in setting, premise, and amount of flashy computer graphics, they’re all pretty much the same. Find a bunch of moderately familiar actors who don’t mind coasting through a good chunk of their career in exchange for a steady paycheck; crank through the same five basic plots Law & Order has been using since, oh, the dawn of recorded history; and make sure to have plenty of sexy, blood-covered dead women in their underwear, just to keep things unsettlingly lively. Voila! You’ve got a critic-proof entertainment product guaranteed to run until the entire cast gets changed out three times over or the sun goes cold — whichever comes first.
So why did Heller — co-creator of the totally-not-a-CBS-police-procedural series Rome — waste his time and effort by writing a pilot that was actually sort of intelligent?
In its basic construction, The Mentalist is no different from any of its mediocre-to-lousy brethren. You’ve got Simon Baker as the Troubled Hero With a Tragic Past, who is Brilliant in a Distinctive and Unusual Way. He has a flirty, clashing rapport with Robin Tunney, the No-Nonsense Law Enforcement Gal Who Secretly Wants to Bone Him Senseless, You Can Totally Tell. She works with her Team of Mismatched Subordinates, including the Big Lug (Owain Yeoman), the Unexpectedly Funny Guy (Tim Kang), and the Hot, Wide-Eyed Rookie Girl (Amanda Righetti). A baffling crime is committed, to and by rich people living someplace sunny and appealingly photographed, and involving a beautiful-yet-mutilated lady-corpse and a Taunting Serial Killer Archenemy. One hour later, after the hero has a few opportunities to Do Quirky Things, Brood About His Secret Pain, and Demonstrate His Unique Gifts, guns are drawn, people are shouting authoritatively, the hero is smiling, and the case is neatly wrapped up.
But within these considerable constraints, Heller writes a distressingly good pilot script. There’s not a scrap of Stupid Premise Exposition here; everything we need to know about Baker’s (unfortunately named) former phony psychic Patrick Jane is elegantly shown or implied, not crammed into some lame monologue. The structure of the episode is boldly unafraid to jump back and forth in time, keeping viewers in mild suspense and uncertainty about Jane and his motivations. And the scene in which we discover his Tragic Past leaves a surprising amount up to the viewer’s imagination. We also get a damn fine opening act, in which Jane wanders into the house of a rich couple with a murdered daughter, raids their fridge to make himself a sandwich, chats with the distraught mother, and neatly engineers a startling comeuppance for the girl’s killer. It’s a memorable, efficient introduction both to Jane and his perceptive powers of observation.
I had so much respect for how well Heller pulled off these elements that I completely forgave him for flubbing the pilot’s central mystery. The clues our hero cites when nabbing the killer are laughably flimsy, and the murderer, though fairly interesting as an overall character, has to stand there explaining a motive that was barely even hinted at in the entire preceeding hour. So much for showing, not telling. Still, I kinda have a perverse respect for anyone who can write a CBS procedural and make everything about it pretty good except the procedural aspects.
I can see why Baker’s gotten a lot of good press; he’s a charismatic guy, very early Michael Caine. Even when he has to say silly, sub-Whedon things like, “He irks me. He’s irksome,” Baker carries Jane’s inner sadness well. Tunney is no less wooden and inert here than she’s been in anything else I’ve ever seen her in, but somehow she’s like five times hotter — especially in the rare moments when she’s not glowering — so I feel shamefully compelled to give her a pass.
As for the Mismatched Subordinates, I’ve liked Yeoman since his funny turn on Kitchen Confidential, and he does well with the few scraps he gets here. Kang’s Agent Cho, who plows through his hilariously tactless lines with the deadpan intensity of Dragnet’s Joe Friday, is pretty amusing. As for Righetti, I like that her character’s devoutly religious without being a total nincompoop, and, well, she’s certainly nice to look at.
As much as I admire Heller’s skill at story structure, I only wish it were in service of something better than yet another cookie-cutter detective show. I’d much rather watch a series about Baker’s shrewd, observant, guilt-ridden protagonist if he weren’t forced to go through the mystery-solving motions every week. But hey, if you like your TV crimes sensational, your plots predictable, and your advertising suspiciously tailored to the Metamucil demographic, at least now you’ve got a series to watch that’s trying to be more than just adequate.
Watch a handsome man peer intently at things Wednesdays at 9 p.m. on CBS.
Leave a comment