The Mentalist (review)

Some of us are unconvinced about the way the whole Red John thing is spinning. In an effort to maintain that long story arc the man's unearthly powers and the complexity of his machinations have reached Lost-like proportions. But this sixth season did open last week with an intriguing development: our faux-psychic, Patrick Jane, is quite sure there's nothing even slightly psychic about the uber-villain, while his sceptical colleague Teresa Lisbon is beginning to believe that some kind of supernatural ability is the only explanation for Red John's omnipresence. It's not much of a spoiler to say any paranormal speculation is laid to rest in this instalment, but the conspiracy theory side of things continues to burgeon.

Meanwhile, of course, there's a crime of the day to get sorted and as tends to be the case with The Mentalist, that crime is pretty ludicrous, but intriguing all the same. It only has one obvious flaw, and that's more to do with this network hoarding episodes of its top series (this played in the States in early October); while a rival network is fast-tracking its shows. The result is a recent episode of Castle built around a similar framework. This particular plotline isn't the only traits the two shows share. The odd-couple partnership between Jane and Lisbon around which this is built is not dissimilar to that between Castle and Beckett.

Likewise the relationship between the grunt detectives (here, Cho and Rigsby; in Castle, Espo and Ryan) is a central part of the fun. But that's not a criticism. It's merely that these shows offer the same pleasures and, if the goofy heart of Castle is Nathan Fillion in the titular role, then undoubtedly Simon Baker's Patrick Jane is the magnetic north of The Mentalist. This is a pretty lightweight vehicle but he's an actor who continues to impress, and not just because of his twinkling blue eyes. Indeed, he transcends his pretty-boy looks.

He wears his forty-something years comfortably and is completely credible as a grown-up, intelligent man. What's also always enjoyable about Baker's performance is that Jane may be relatively unflappable but he's not a tough guy and tonight's more satisfying moments are when we see him reacting like an ordinary, frail human being.

SRC: theage.com.au/