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80Stunning opening suggests the potential. It's Baker's show, and he excels. But guest stars impress, too.
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80In its solidly crafted premiere, the CBS drama demonstrates admirable restraint while still telling a reasonably interesting story.
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80Psychological sleight of hand can't fill an hour every week. For that you need complicated, interesting crimes and complicated, interesting characters solving them. The Mentalist seems prepared to deliver just that.
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80This role is tailor-made for Baker, who has a flair for playing irreverent characters who are crucial to the success of the system even as they tweak its authority figures.
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80The Mentalist is safe, predictable, manufactured crime drama … and it works.
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75The tricks he performs are overshadowed by the glee with which Baker performs them. Like any good grifter, he gets a genuine thrill out of entertaining, manipulating, or confusing people.
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75The Mentalist may be a copy, but it's a well-done copy sparked by an actor who has come into his own as a TV star.
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75The formula--must find murderer of beautiful woman before last commercial break--predates the dinosaurs, but also incorporates some satisfying twists.
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70Because as much as Baker's suavely sly version of a gotcha artist is a welcome addition, thanks to a few not-so-hidden laws of character-actor placement, you'll guess the pilot scenario's killer before anybody else.
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70Mr. Baker keeps The Mentalist easy on the eyes and brain.
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70Its detective plots are cozily formulaic, its defining twist cheerfully preposterous. As cop-show comfort food, it's a kind of California fusion cooked up to appeal to people fed up with techno-beat lab scenes.
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70Its semi-psychic hero is intriguing enough and confident enough--not everybody can sneak a hypnosis-inducing trance into an exchange with a reluctant witness as deftly as he can--to bring viewers under his spell.
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70Baker and his wily line readings and intimidatingly sly stares can snap the show out of occasional stupors.
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70The CBS show has very little dramatic heft or distinction, but it's wily and brisk enough to engage you for an hour.
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70The Mentalist is anything but irksome, proving once again that watchable television isn't so much about originality--if something hasn't been done before, there might be a reason--as it is about execution.
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70It's not groundbreaking TV, but the pilot does a good job of introducing the characters, their relationships, their potential relationships.
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60The results are satisfying, and suspenseful, yes, but also a little bit stupid and predictable, too.
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60Baker has an unforced masculinity that allows him to play likable bastards like this, and with the other regular characters (played by Robin Tunney, Owain Yeoman, Tim Kang and Amanda Righetti) so far ciphers at best, he's able to carry the show by his lonesome.
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50Too many serial killers threaten to overwhelm The Mentalist, whose charismatic lead character can stand on his own, if the show's producers would only realize that murders committed singly can be just as interesting as serial murders, and just as difficult to solve, too
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50There's an old-school feel to the storytelling (shades of "Columbo") that makes it feel comfortable--perhaps too comfortable, or at least too easy.
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50Patrick dramatizes his sense of superiority, intimidating and irritating just about anyone who comes in contact with him....The Mentalist does offer its own charms, chief among them Baker’s low-key, apparently complicated sarcasm.
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50And so far, so-so.
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50Smart guys from the outskirts of society have been solving tough cases entertainingly at least as long as Sherlock Holmes. The Mentalist simply presents another, along with no compelling reason either to tune in or turn off.
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50Baker does possess a certain roguish charm, and writer Bruno Heller ("Rome") and pilot-directing guru David Nutter mine that--as well as the central character's slightly menacing backstory--to try and invest the series with a bit of depth, mostly to little avail.
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50As the lead, Simon Baker is too one-note smirky for me.
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40The smirky cynicism, savage mockery of New Age verities and prickly atheism of its lead character could have made The Mentalist fascinating (if not altogether pleasant) viewing. Instead, it turns down the same formulaic path as CBS' other police procedurals, a sort of CSI-with-a-fake-crystal-ball.
User score distribution:
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Positive: 34 out of 42
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Mixed: 3 out of 42
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Negative: 5 out of 42
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