The Curious Case of The Mentalist's Success

When The Mentalist premiered last fall, it actually struck me as better than I would have expected. That's not to say it was an excellent show or anything, but I had hopes that it would turn into a better procedural than most. Well, unlike most shows that start off slow and get better as the first season progresses, The Mentalist started off decent enough and very quickly devolved into the murky waters of the practically unwatchable. The worst part? The worse the show gets, the more viewers it gets. Oh, America. Will you never learn?

In a crop of otherwise lackluster new series last fall (ratings-wise), The Mentalist emerged as the only real runaway hit. Many of the other new shows were immediately far superior in quality, but somehow CBS once again sucked in record numbers of viewers for yet another mediocre crime procedural. I'm thinking it must be a Stonecutters plot...

Anyway, it started off okay-ish, if hackneyed, and given it's uncrowded timeslot, I penciled in a space for The Mentalist on my third tier and watched it only when there was absolutely nothing else.

After the past few episodes however, I think it may have to be bumped off the viewing list completely. In short, the show annoys the hell out of me and I spend the better part of every episode alternately yelling at the TV and weeping for the future of a culture that would love this show so entirely. I'm going to assume that the only people out there with Nielsen boxes (which is a ridiculous, inaccurate, archaic system that doesn't even kind of work--but that's a rant for another day) are old people who don't know how to watch TV online or off their DVR. Seriously, only people over the age of 50 consistently watch TV when it's actually on. As such, shows that appeal to old people (well, not only old people, but they skew older, that's for sure) like Dancing with the Stars, NCIS, and the steaming crap pile that is The Mentalist garner such huge ratings numbers.

Anyway, after this week's episode, I just don't know if The Mentalist will be allowed a spot on my viewing schedule, no matter how desperate I am for programming. It's just too painful.

Let me count the ways...

1) That's not a brilliant deduction, Sherlock, that's lazy, half-assed writing.
This problem presented itself early on in the series (read: about a dozen times in the pilot alone), but I had had hopes that the writers would realize this was a problem and correct things. Yeah, not so much. Basically, Patrick Jane (played by the usually delightful Simon Baker) is a Sherlock Holmes-yish type character who can make keen perceptions about the people around him. The problem is, the writers are just too damned crappy for him to make brilliant deductions based on tiny clues, so they just have him pull random insights out of his head with either no explanation, or a completely crappy explanation. Apparently he could tell that Van Pelt's father was a football coach from the Midwest, but then casually offers no explanation for how he came to this (invariably) correct conclusion. When he does offer an explanation, it's usually painfully ridiculous. Seriously, it usually goes a little something like this: A body is found with no identification. The witless detectives turn to Jane who chimes in with something like, "You see the tiny black smudge on his shoe? Well, clearly this indicates that his family owns an Italian restaurant in Virginia where a bituminous coal mine 6.2 miles up the road deposited coal dust on the sidewalk he takes to work from his one bedroom apartment for which he pays $557 a month in rent to a landlord name Oleg. You people didn't notice that? You're so stupid." Okay, so it's not quite that ridiculous (usually), but on the off chance that the writers even bother to give some sort of explanation, it's outlandish, condescending, and unbelievable and leaves the other characters on the show amazed, dumbfounded, and ultimately useless in the presence of such a supreme genius. Oy. Which brings me to my next point...

2) He's infallible and basically renders the rest of the team completely unnecessary.
Jane has the uncanny ability to make assessments based on nothing. Okay, whatever. If that's where you want this premise to go, fine. But, if that's really what you're going to base your entire show around, he has to have flaws and he has to be wrong at least some of the time. Jane is never ever wrong. He's almost never even a bit off. He pulls fanciful bullshit out of no where and is always spot on. Shows like House and Psych (the far superior predecessor to this kind of idea) both have characters who make deductions based on their observations, but those shows do it right. Dr. House is wrong a hell of a lot of the time, but ultimately works it out in the end. Usually. Even the brilliant Dr. House totally screws up on occasion. While not the norm, the audience at least knows that it's a possibility, and can never be sure he'll swoop in to save the day. His team (well, at least the old team--god, how I miss the old team...) actually helps him get to the right answer and on occasion, beat him to the punch. The crew on The Mentalist basically just have to watch Jane foppishly screwing with people and setting up ridiculous schemes until the end of the episode. They do the standard cop stuff, interviewing people and whatnot, but never really help solve the case in the end. Dull, lame, lazy, stupid. On Psych, from which this concept was originally stolen, bastardized, and resold to the public in a pathetically inferior form with The Mentalist, Shawn makes deductions based on his surroundings, but the writers of that show actually have the skills to make his deductions possible. Also, Shawn is wrong sometimes, and even when he's right, he's never positive he's right until he has more pieces of the puzzle. Gus always helps out and the police actually do their jobs and help solve cases. Jane is certain of everything pretty much all at once. It's lame and it makes the rest of the cast nothing but extraneous fodder for Jane to screw around with and patronize. It's like when someone who's listening to a conversations smugly says, "Interesting," then refuses to say what is interesting. It's pompous and annoying and on this show, constant. Can you say fun to watch? Blah. Which brings me to my next point...

3) He's annoying as all get out and I'd love to see Mary and Marshall kick his ass.
Jane toys with people constantly. Again, other shows seem to be able to make this work. House and Shawn both toy with the people around them on a regular basis, but they're actually likeable--even when House is an ass, he's better than Jane. Now don't get me wrong, Simon Baker is usually quite delightful. On this show? He's so incessantly smug that you just want to slap the hell out of him. On last night's episode, the dead-guy-of-the-week was in witness protection, so the US Marshalls showed up all over the place. Fortunately, In Plain Sight actually got pretty good (second tier, I'd say, if not lower first), so I'm intimately familiar with witsec procedures and whatnot. The whole time Jane was being a pompous jackass, I just kept hoping the next US Marshalls to show up would be Mary and Marshall. Oh, how I'd love to see Mary kick Patrick Jane's sorry ass. Alas, to no avail... Jane will just keep on being the single-faceted impish prick he's always been and the writers of the show will keep thinking that that kind of behavior is actually charming. Which it's not.

4) The writers of this show don't have even the most basic knowledge of the law.
Further, I'm pretty sure they've never seen a movie or TV show about people how have a basic knowledge of the law. The characters' actions are beyond ridiculous, risible, immoral, and unethical, pretty much all of the time. Warrants are almost never obtained, and on the off chance they decide to get one, they somehow get it within a matter of minutes. Whatever the situation, they generally just barge into people's homes willy-nilly and someone will add a throw-away line that explains why they don't have to actually follow any police protocol or, you know, the Constitution. In last night's inexcusable episode, they barge into the home of the dead guy even after the guy's wife tells them they cannot come in and screams at them to leave. Apparently she was in mortal danger (throw away line that makes no sense), so they just stormed in without an invitation or warrant. That, however, pales in comparison to the most ridiculous, unlawful act ever committed on this show (and let me tell ya, I had to special order a bar that high, and then this surpassed it). To get the dead guy's wife to confess to the murder, Patrick Jane literally tells her she has to confess to the murder or die. He even had one of his police friends dress up as a hitman and come to the house as Jane reiterates that unless she confesses, she's going to die. Jane very cleverly (note sarcasm) tape records her confession and then has her hauled off to the pokey. Oh my holy god, that's the most ludicrous thing I've ever seen on this show or any show. Can you say coerced confession?! If that's not duress, I don't know what is! Seriously, I think a hitman is going to shoot me unless I confess to a murder and hell yeah I'll confess to anything! As would anyone else! That tape is completely inadmissible in court and if anything, makes the police case look that much worse. It's unethical and was obtained under duress, but Jane and company act like that was just crack detective work. Without the tape, which is inadmissible, they have no case whatsoever. No hard evidence, no witnesses, no nothing. That wasn't a smooth and clever wrap up to a difficult case, that was an embarrassment. This show's writers have apparently never done any research into the profession they write about all day and have clearly never seen a show written by anyone who has. Utterly inexcusable. That was seriously the last straw. It's not clever and cunning, it's ridiculous, lazy writing, once again.

5) Oh, so predictable.
In spite of the show's ridiculousness and Jane's preternatural ability to draw specific conclusions based on practically nothing, the show is utterly predictable. Nine episodes out of ten, I know who did what and why and how within the first 20 minutes. This again can be largely chalked up to the horrible writing. They focus on things that make the conclusions obvious and when something is genuinely mysterious, Jane pulls the full explanation out of his ass and all is revealed after very little if any effort. It makes it exceedingly unfun to watch and anti-climactic on a regular basis.

6) Robin Tunney.
Bland as ever. 'Nough said. Well, not quite 'nough, I suppose. It's clear that the writers are trying to write her as Jane's foil and that they're pushing for some chemistry between them, but it's a lost cause. The pair have absolutely no chemistry whatsover, let alone a strong romantic vibe. She has no personality, no charm, and near as I can tell, nothing but a hamster wheel in her head. The rest of the supporting cast is decent enough, but with Tunney's character and Patrick Jane at the helm, the show is exceedingly dull.

So there you have it. Just some of the many, MANY reasons this show has gotten pretty damn awful, and yet people keep tuning in. A lot of people. A lot of old people who actually watch TV when it's actually on... Weird, right?

Anyway, if you like this show but are realizing that it actually kinda, sorta, seriously sucks, I'd recommend tuning in to Psych on USA Network instead. Same kinda premise, but insanely awesome instead of completely craptastic. :)