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Mentalist: The Complete First Season (The)
R1 - America - Warner Home Video Review written by and copyright: Andreas Petersen (26th September 2009). |
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The Show
 I was raised by parents who were obsessed with shows about the law, cops, crime scenes, and everything in between. "Law & Order" (1990-Present), "NYPD Blue" (1993-2005), "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation" (2000-Present), all these shows, in every shade and color, were, and to this day, are still my parents’ primary source of entertainment. Also, my girlfriend watches "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation", "Bones" (2005-Present), and "Law & Order" religiously. Despite all of these factors, I have never gotten into the genre of cop/law drama. Even movies about the law failed to ever impress me. Every time another cop show flowed down a TV channel’s line-up like a waterlogged corpse, I was the first person to roll his eyes and groan. However, from the start, "The Mentalist" always caught my attention. Its main conceit isn’t about a super cop, or a psychic, but rather someone who is really good at reading people’s nuances. Now that I’ve finally watched the show, I’m happy to say I finally have a law/cop show that I enjoy. Actually, to say this is the first law show I ever liked would be a lie. "The Mentalist", starring Simon Baker as Patrick Jane, reminds me of another show I adore to this day: "Columbo" (1971-1990). If you don’t know who or what "Columbo" is, do yourself a favor and check it out. I’ll just say it’s a show about a guy who is VERY good at his job, and this is something I felt has been missing from law shows, at least until now. Patrick Jane (Simon Baker) is a mentalist, or rather an ex-psychic who now uses his powers of observation as a police consultant rather than scamming people out of their money. Jane can read people’s facial reactions and mannerisms as though he were psychic, but constantly points out that he is not. He tussles with his partner Teresa (Robin Tunney) on a regular basis, as she is frightened by his maverick approach to catching the bad guys. They are aided by Kimball (Tim Kang), whom often backs Jane up, Wayne (Owain Yeoman), a brutish arson specialist, and Grace (Amanda Righetti), the God fearing member of the crew. The show works on a case-by-case basis, with each new episode offering a new murder, but at the same time offers a large over-arching theme involving the serial killer Red John, who killed Jane’s wife and child back in his psychic days. The show’s strongest card lies within its sense of humor. Even though the show deals with violent slayings, incestuous relationships, and more so, but never loses it’s clever and snappy dialogue, much like my old favorite, "Columbo". Baker works wonders for the show as me plays with his pray, and I had a blast just watching a detective be insanely good at his job. My main problem with the show however, is I think there are just too many characters. The show at its core is a character study of one man trying to deal with his past through humor and healing, and he is foiled nicely by Robin Tunney’s character. The crew of 5 detectives however can feel a bit much sometime. Baker gets all the screen time he needs to develop, but sometimes I feel like Kimball, Wayne, and Grace are all characters who could have been morphed into just one. The three characters never get enough time to breath, and the result is a lot of screen time being taken up by people I don’t care too much about. In the end however, too many characters just wasn’t enough for me to harsh on the show. From beginning to finish, I was entertained, and the CBS show has a new fan to count. It ain't "Columbo", but it surely carries the torch. This first season set includes all 23 episodes: - "Pilot" - "Red Hair and Silver Tape" - "Red Tide" - "Ladies in Red" - "Redwood" - "Red Handed" - "Seeing Red" - "Thin Red Line" - "Flame Red" - "Red Brick and Ivy" - "Red John's Friends" - "Red Rum" - "Paint it Red" - "Crimson Casanova" - "Scarlett Fever" - "Bloodshot" - "Carnelian Inc." - "Russet Potatoes" - "A Dozen Red Roses" - "Red Sauce" - "Miss Red" - "Blood Brothers" - "Red John's Footsteps"
Video
"The Mentalist" is presented in 1.78:1 anamorphic aspect ratio transfer, and as I always mention in all my reviews of DVD's, the format is really showing its age. The color looks far from terrible, but I would be lying if I said it wasn’t distracting. The show isn’t the most colorful, but the actual quality of the picture was slightly blurry during most of my viewing, and at times felt as though I was watching this on TV, on a set I bought ten years ago, rather than a 42 inch LCD screen. I’ll put it this way: The picture quality didn’t hinder my enjoyment of the show’s quality, but I will certainly be picking it up on Blu-ray when it comes out on that format.
Audio
"The Mentalist" is offered in an English Dolby Digital 5.1 surround sound track, as well as a Brazilian Portuguese Dolby Digital 2.0 stereo track, with optional English, Brazilian Portuguese, French, Chinese, Korean, Thai, and Spanish subtitles. The English 5.1 track I listened to was decently impressive, with sounds moving around my set up at the appropriate times. The dialogue comes through clear and fine, and the music is prevalent but never overbearing. Overall, a suitable audio track that is just short of “really impressive”.
Extras
The first season of "The Mentalist" comes with a few extras peppered across the discs, in the form of deleted scenes, two featurettes, and a blooper reel, all of which are detailed further below: DISC ONE: First up is "Lost Evidence" which is the deleted scenes reel, which runs for 5 minutes and 15 seconds. The scenes here are all from the pilot, and are mainly extensions of Jane’s appearance on a talk show in a flashback. None of the content is worthless, and it’s obvious that it was taken out due to time restrictions. DISC TWO: There are no extras on this disc. DISC THREE: The third disc offers more "Lost Evidence" deleted scenes reel which runs for 56 seconds, and is a single scene in which Jane grills a suspect in a crime, and anticipates an attempt of violence upon him. This scene would have fit right into the show, and I have to just assume that again, this was cut for time. DISC FOUR: There are no extras on this disc. DISC FIVE: There are no extras on this disc. DISC SIX: First up, disc six has its own "Lost Evidence" deleted scenes reel running for 2 minutes and 34 seconds. All the scenes are from the episode Red John’s Footsteps, and mainly concern Jane’s boss, and how he is able to screw with him, and trick him into Jane doing things his way. Again, moderately entertaining stuff. "Evidence of a Hit Series" featurette runs for 24 minutes and 2 seconds, acts as a retrospective look back at the show’s first season, with interviews with cast and crew, including series creator Bruno Heller. Everyone interviewed here explains why they were drawn to the show, but for different reasons. Baker’s primary reason was that he liked how it was almost a parody of the procedural cop show. Heller explains that there is a pretentious angle to look at the show, but when it’s boiled down, it’s all about having fun. I couldn’t have agreed more. Next up is "Cracking the Crystal Ball: Mentalist vs. Psychic" which runs for 18 minutes and 11 seconds, and is an interesting featurette that examines the show’s take on the paranormal. Also, the feature has interviews with actual psychics and skeptics alike as they address the character of Patrick Jane, and give their thoughts on whether or not psychics exist in the real world. I really liked this feature, especially when Heller would talk about how he doesn’t discount psychics as being real, but ultimately just wants proof. Lastly, "Surveillance Video" which runs for 7 minutes and 6 seconds, acts as the set’s blooper reel. This is pretty typical blooper material, with people flubbing lines and laughing, or interrupting each other, or missing a mark. I’m not a huge blooper fan to begin with, but there is a part of me that liked seeing people have fun on the set, which only serves the show’s aloof tone. The only thing I would have asked for is a commentary track on a few episodes. Heller comes off as a fascinating man in the interviews, and considering how much insight seems to be put into the show’s nuances itself, I would have loved to hear more from the man behind it.
Overall
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