The Mentalist is a Good TV Show Like Life is a Good Cereal

The Mentalist is a Good TV Show Like Life is a Good Cereal February 28, 2017

Sometimes a man wishes for great television and sometimes he just wants to enjoy some sound entertainment. The best of all cold cereals, Peanut Butter Crunch, is too  good for daily use, it is for the Holidays. However, Life cereal combines just enough sugar and oat goodness to endure the breakfasts of February.

Life is comfort cereal: sweet, but not too sweet. You can eat it with anything, but it does not taste too bland either. And this brings us to how to choose a television show.

Some television is great (Andy Griffith), some is not so great (Star Trek: Enterprise), and some has greatness only when it goes to streaming. This is the show not memorable enough to keep you in gear over the long hiatus between seasons (Who is that again?), but that shines when you can zip through the whole thing.

This is Life television: comfort viewing.

(Used for review purposes)
(Used for review purposes)

Except for sports, we give “live” video a pass and wait until a series is done. At that point it becomes our end of the day treat and we fly through the canon without commercials or breaks. We see the characters grow and the actors age in a matter of weeks as there is no break between seasons. In fact, the season cliffhanger (generally) has to be watched in conjunction with the next season opener, because inquiring minds want to know.

Some favorites seen this way are The GrinderYou, Me and the Apocalypse, and the original Hawaii Five-O.  None are great television, but all were good comfort television: just smart enough not to be foolish, but not so smart to make two tired teachers bring their best thought. Two recent failures were Person of Interest, which decided not to about people and of little interest, and Black List, where the absurdity level of the plot drove even me away (and I think some of third season Star Trek TOS is good).

In other cases, the show is too good to consume this way: we let The Run of His Life happen to us week by week. There was too much to consider.

The Mentalist (we are in season four) is formulaic.  A psychic, Patrick Jayne (Simon Baker), is conning his way to fame and wealth when his pride attracts a serial killer, Red John. Jayne loses his wife and child, gives up his scam, and sets out to find the murderer. He becomes a consultant for the ludicrously named CBI (California Bureau of Investigation), a group so implausible the show makes jokes about people never having heard of it. You must forget how he manages this. Not surprisingly, he joins a madcap team that becomes his family.  Led by Teresa Lisbon (Robin Tunney) the crew closes case after case. Each season brings them closer, one hopes, to capturing Red John.

Jayne is Sherlock Holmes with a group of Watsons. Where Watson got the girl in Sign of Four, my bet is that Patrick and Teresa will end their studies in scarlet (each episode relates to the color red) by getting married. At least that is what we hope. The rest of the cast is fine with Kimball Cho (Tim Kang) channeling the Jack Webb method of acting better than even Dan Ackroyd. The show is recent enough that one is shocked when nobody has a smart phone and then they start appearing. 

Life doesn’t need The Mentalist, but just as Life cereal can get you through a still-too-dark winter morning, so The Mentalist can put you to sleep with style. Apple TV has it now and it is worth your time.


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