The Mentalist: An Analysis

I like watching new television shows because you can see how the writers develop the character from the ground up, how they hook the viewer, and how they put a new twist on an obviously time-worn premise. I mean it, as writers, we all have to face the fact that there is really nothing new under the sun and only a finite number of plots.

Everything Old Is New

Yet, there are books, television, movies, and music that debut often, and they manage to entrance and delight us.

How do they do this? Because writers, directors, and show runners bring their voice to the project. Voice is that quality that allows one to easily identify a Joss Whedon project as opposed to a Jason Katims project.

With actors, I think of their voice as more accurately being called their presence.  It’s a piece of them that’s composed of their personality, their looks, their life experience, their conscious and unconscious attitudes, desires, and memories and how the role resonates with them based on things they may consciously acknowledge or unconsciously feel without realizing it.

So a successful show is a product of the combines writers’ voices and the actors’ presences.  When this combination doesn’t quite mesh, you have a show that has all the right elements, but it just never succeeds widely or for very long even though it may attract a rabid following.

When the combination works, the result is magic.

Genius Solves Crime Genre

The Mentalist is in the genre of “genius solves crimes” which isn’t a derogatory statement. This season there are several offerings in this genre. I’ve been DVRing all the new shows so I could pick them apart. It goes without saying, but I’ll say it anyway, I’m forbidden to make comments while the family is watching a show. They threaten me with bodily harm if I open my mouth. They don’t want to know why something is or isn’t working.

I have high hopes for The Mentalist. I’ve always liked Simon Baker whether he played a smarmy character as in Devil Wears Prada or a sweet-natured good guy as in Something New. He brings to life a character who’s charming, nice, and a bit of an oddity. There’s a vulnerability about him it seems that makes him anxious to be liked by his peers in the FBI team. He enjoys bonding with the guys, and he’s a friend to the women. Of course, he’s the show’s resident genius who comes up with the answer to the crime as a result of filtering all the information through his brain.

It will be interesting to see how the writers develop his back story and show us vulnerabilities that make the average person identify with him rather than feeling distanced from his genius character.

Second Bananas & Sidekicks Needed

Now, let’s talk about one of the real strengths for shows competing in an already crowded genre: secondary characters. The Mentalist has real strength in the secondary characters, particularly Tim Kang who plays Kendall Cho and Owain Yeoman who plays Wayne Rigsby. You might recognize Yeoman from the pilot episode of Sarah Connor Chronicles. These two and Simon Baker’s character are sometimes like three twelve-year-old buddies. The humor is dead-on.

Kickass Women

My only complaint with the women of this particular show is the same with all women characters in all shows. I’m sure male viewers will disagree, but the women dress too sexy for their job, and most of them don’t look as if they could beat a gnat in a fight. Of course, this is Follywood’s fault. Apparently, the powers that be in Follywood think that the standard of beauty is a size zero.

Show me a size zero who can take on a six feet tall male with a knife, and I’ll show you the tooth fairy because they both live in the same plane of existence. Now, I like Robin Tunney. She’s a good actor, but she’s just too tiny and delicate-looking for the role. She’s not physically believable as an aggressive FBI special agent.

The show is entertaining and well-acted though I don’t know whether I’d say well-cast, but I think it’s future hangs on the writing. If they can produce stories that surprise without resorting to gross-out scenes or completely ridiculous scenarios which are so common in too many shows, then they’ll survive. Unfortunately, the episodes I saw didn’t take a genius to figure out whodunnit.

Takeaway Truth

Take notes when you watch television. See what they do well and what they need work on. Then apply that to your own writing.

Tags: Kendall Cho, mentalist, Owain Yeoman, robin tunney, sarah connor chronicles, show runner, simon baker, writers