The Mentalist
| The Mentalist | |
|---|---|
 The Mentalist's current intertitle. | |
| Genre | Police procedural Drama |
| Created by | Bruno Heller |
| Directed by | Chris Long David Nutter |
| Starring | Simon Baker Amanda Righetti Robin Tunney Tim Kang Owain Yeoman |
| Opening theme | "Theme from The Mentalist" |
| Country of origin | United States |
| Language(s) | English |
| No. of seasons | 3 |
| No. of episodes | 64 (List of episodes) |
| Production | |
| Executive producer(s) | Bruno Heller David Nutter |
| Producer(s) | Charles Goldstein |
| Location(s) | California |
| Running time | 43 minutes |
| Production company(s) | Primrose Hill Productions Warner Bros. Television |
| Broadcast | |
| Original channel | CBS |
| Original run | September 23, 2008 – present |
| External links | |
| Website | |
The Mentalist is an American police procedural television series which debuted on September 23, 2008, on CBS. The show was created by Bruno Heller, who is also the show's executive producer. It follows the story of Patrick Jane, who, as a paid consultant, uses unorthodox methods to aid the fictional California Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in homicide investigations.
On May 19, 2010, CBS announced that The Mentalist had been renewed for a third season. The third season premiered September 23, 2010.
Plot
The Mentalist follows Simon Baker as Patrick Jane, an independent consultant for a fictionalised version of the California Bureau of Investigation (CBI) based in Sacramento, California. Although not an officer of the law of any sort, he uses skills and knowledge from his former career as a successful psychic medium (which was a ruse, as he does not believe anyone actually has psychic abilities) to help a team of CBI agents solve various crimes, with the hope of one day bringing Red John, the murderer of his wife and daughter, to justice.
Patrick Jane formerly had a lucrative career as a con man, successfully posing as a psychic medium and enjoying near-celebrity status. He appeared on television to claim that his paranormal abilities helped the police profile a serial killer named Red John. Red John, angered by the perceived slight, murdered Jane's wife and young daughter in revenge. Jane subsequently abandoned his career as a psychic and teamed up with the CBI, using his skills to help them solve various crimes. His main focus is on the cases involving Red John or Red John copycats. He admits to faking the supernatural aspects of his skills, often asserting that "there's no such thing as psychics", yet he has finely honed skills in cold reading, hypnotism, and pickpocketing, as well as powerful observational skill and a deep insight into the human psyche and behavior. These skills come in handy in every episode, and his unorthodox and bizarre techniques to solve crimes sometimes offend the team of agents he works with. Jane often employs elaborate ruses and mind games to trick the culprit into confessing.
Production
The show often sets episodes in fictional locales with names like Salinger Mill and Rancho Rosa. Like the majority of American television shows, the Mentalist is mostly filmed within the studio zone in Los Angeles County, but occasionally films a few scenes on location in Sacramento.
On October 15, 2008, CBS ordered a full season of The Mentalist. On May 20, 2009, CBS renewed The Mentalist for a second season, which premiered on September 24, 2009, in the US. and on September 22 on CTV in Canada, as well as September 28, 2009, in Australia. On May 19, 2010, CBS announced that The Mentalist was renewed for a third season.
Concept
Due to the main character's ability to notice seemingly insignificant details, to draw conclusions from them and profile people, the show has drawn comparison to other television series, most notably Millennium, House, Law & Order: Criminal Intent, Life, Monk, Profiler, and especially Psych, a show that premiered two years before the Mentalist and features a virtually identical plot (fake psychic serving as consultant for California law enforcement). This connection is jocularly alluded to in the season 4 premiere of Psych, with the title character Shawn Spencer desribing the plots as "eerily similar" and "a virtual carbon copy". All of these shows ultimately trace their origins back to Arthur Conan Doyle in his Sherlock Holmes stories. While it has been acknowledged that the concept is not a new one, the show has been praised for its "thoughtful execution".
Cast and characters
Main cast
Recurring cast
Episode list
Reception
The pilot episode had an audience of 15.6 million viewers in its first airing, and 7.8 million in a re-airing three days later. The December 2, 2008, episode ("Flame Red") was the highest-rated television show of the week, marking the first time a program in its first season had achieved that distinction since Desperate Housewives four years earlier.
Awards and nominations
US ratings
Distribution
On November 6, 2009, TNT announced that it had obtained exclusive syndication rights for The Mentalist and would begin airing old episodes of the series starting in the fall of 2011. In Greece, the series premiered in 2009 on pay-tv service NovaCinema 1 and the first season will premiere in 7 February 2011 on Star Channel. In India, The Mentalist premiered in November 2010 on Zee Cafe.
DVD releases
Warner Home Video has released both the first and second season on DVD in Regions 1, 2 & 4. in region 2 on October 25, 2010 and in region 4 on November 10, 2010
Reviews
References
External links
Retrieved from : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mentalist#Recurring_cast
