"Men are like Toasters. Women are like Accordions." says Patrick, to which the Detectives huffnpuff off - "I thought I was providing a compliment." mutters The MENtalist in Ep titled 'Crimson Casanova'!

20m Weekly Viewers of The Mentalist Rox.

Aussies are good at crackn the West Coast, maybe that’s where i should be. I’m pretty sure Simon Baker lives in California, living a few hours drive from Hollywood on one of those beautiful clifftop ocean areas. (from what i remember of a long interesting good weekend interview back from his The Guardian days), mmm hadnt thought about the fact his shows have “The” prefix - ‘The’ Guardian. ‘The’ Mentalist, that is where they pegged his locale - Kinda a surfing, younger version of Santa Barbara - where would that be ? Anyways - btw : in one of these photos is the killer in this week’s Mentalist. (not the one on in Australia 2nite tho:)

So the Mentalist has been one of the best guilty viewing pleasures (along with Fringe) of the last 6 months, being almost thru Season 1 (well not in Australia which is of course 1/2 year behind, being just at the start) This week’s classic line from Aussie Own’s Patrick, in an episode to do with Pick Up Artists : “Men are like Toasters; Women are like Accordions.” It takes the typical cop drama structure, ala The Closer (which i also really like) and injects ‘intuition not evidence’ says the NYT, which ends up meaning instead of playing a Bad Gregory House in a Hospital, he plays a nice Patrick Jane in a cop show. So it’s good to see it’s best new tv show ratingwise in the US, with 20m viewers a week, Simon Baker well deserves it; Obviously it’s due to his 32/5 numbering profile. This week watching S1E14 on Pickup Artists (torrent ere), I thought I’d Moleskine Storyboard pocketsize sketch (best creative/media/web notebook there is btw) The Rules of The Mentalist.

The Mentalist Cast on CBS which must be laughing all the way to the 20m weekly viewers bank

The Mentalist TV Story Structure*

Intro : There is a Crime/Murder/Death. Like SixFeetUnder, CSI, heck House and it seems every show since the beginning of time (wonder when this convention started btw?) each ep starts with the crime, that being Murder 1. (just added the “1″ not sure why) It’s all dreamy (gunshots in a room, loud, camera positioned outside), we don’t know who did it, that is what Patrick will solve over next 43 minutes.

Act 1 : Introduce (Lead) Suspect 1. Patrick and lead female detective plus entourage arrive. (it’s good if somewhat stereotypical that supporting cast is female skewed even (pictured above) Det Cho is a classic esp in this ep : S1E14) She/They must feel silly because Patrick always finds the key evidence (about 1/3rd of the time it seems to be an actual suspect - half of which are dead, others may be up a tree) He doesn’t have to ask god or anything, he does a little diagnostic test, then often walks out of room, somewhere close : 20m-100m. And presto we have evidence and Suspect 1. (often the actual crime-doing murderer will have a little tidbit interaction in this scene which in retrospect highlights is as obvious they were the killa, but not on first viewing. this is the easiest way to impress friends and pick murderer early) Suspect 1 (nearly always Husband or Wife) on the other hand seems to never be guilty of murder, even if they are in unhappy marriage (but i would never kill him/her), cheating etc

Act 2 : What about Suspect 2 ? Talking to suspect 1 usually leads to a deflection/discovery of another party with hidden motive, access to victim and they become the new target, even if this leads to Patrick (who is only a consultant) and/or a detective losing their job due to the suspect being powerful, related to District Attorney, an old copper and so on.

Act 3 : Suspect 3, now we’re getting closer. So we’ve gone thru husband/wife, and mistress/cheater types via Suspect 1 + 2, and now we’re getting deeply involved in the victim’s world to understand who may have done this hideous thing.  Patrick will often turn up for unscheduled scones with Suspect 3 and start doing the pysch trix we love him for. From asking blunt quick questions “Did you murder X?” and gauging their immediate reactions, to holding their wrist/pulse while asking and classics like “What animal do you see yourself as ?” - The information gathered in this session is often used for Mr Baker to explain to the clueless detectives later on how this supporting information helped him crack it. Even when it’s not Suspect 3 (who is often the original girlfriend/boyfriend of the mistress/cheatee who was murdered by husband/wife), although sometimes it is, but if so not for the immediate reasons thought,  or in conjunction with another suspect. Patrick won’t disclose this information till after the perp’ has been caught.

Act 4 : Suspect 4 + The Sting : This is where Patrick often against bosses orders will in conjunction with one of his rogue underresourced detectives organise a sting on the Suspect. Although things arent as they seem as the sting may appear to be of one of the non-guilty suspects.

Click to Go to The Mentalist CBS Forum

In Damages-esque mode (ignore spoiler photo below if u havent seen ep and want to), late in the sting, we are introduced to Suspect 4, just before Patrick or often more so a detective (maybe undercover) gets shot, beatup, overdosed etc. The sting’s magik trick worx exactly how Patrick planned it, just he didnt tell any1. So suspect 4 can often go full circle and be the mother of the child hurt, not the husband as suspected, or some1 in authority obsessed secretly with one of the suspects.

Act 5 : Guilty - Post Arrest Bliss - Now Patrick gets to have a nap on the couch, have a contemplative thought about his murdered wife and child (maybe he’ll play with the ring on his finger, or a psychic brought into the case, will give him an unprompted reading on their way out - to which he will get disturbed and female detective Grace (Amanda Righetti) will lovingly drool over him - even tho she is loved by Det.Rigsby)

The Mentalist Itchy Finger, Murdered Wife + Kids drive him like Charlie Kruze in Life. To quote TV Guide : "Usually with this sort of person you can find some reassuring downside: They aren't that tall or have fake tans. But Baker has no apparent flaws. His skin looks healthy, and he's a legitimate 6 feet tall. The black-rimmed glasses he wears today only make him seem even more earnest. His co-star, Robin Tunney, very attractive in her own right, says she wishes she could videotape her answer to the first question she's always asked about him, so she could stop repeating it: Yes, he really is that handsome. And so it is with The Mentalist. It is the top-rated new show on television. The stars seem to like each other. One of the reporters in attendance carries a copy of The New York Times, which includes an article saying The Mentalist represents the next wave of crime procedural, where the focus is on intuition instead of evidence."

Extra Unrequired Footnotes that dont deserve their own post.

* I’m an internet geek and have no idea about tv story structure but on the internet any1 (who may be a dawg goes the nyt cartoon) can say anything. Mainly I have no idea if the above is the formula, so if u have visions of being the next Diablo Cody (United States of Tara is awesome 5 eps in), Ari Gold, or Aquaman pls dont ask for a Google adsense refund from me. That said, if u r more Chuck than Mentalist then check out this Sepinwall piece on Chuck. At ComicCon, they’re rather obsessive stalking of Chucks bodyguard agent beauty - Agent Sarah Walker played by Yvonne Stahotski - is on the highly worrying side; “At various points, the webmaster of Strahotski.com declared that he had a personalized Strahotski teddy bear to give to her. A representative of a local Polish-American society tried to invite Yvonne to be grand marshal at their annual parade.”

If u r into more unconventional story structure then try by same author (best TV blog Sepinwall.Blogspot.com his latest interview with the Flight of Conchords who apart from S2E1 series 2 is motoring along :

Q. “Has it been harder, though? You did have this existing backlog of material going into the first season. You basically had to start from scratch for this.”

Jemaine: “… We thought it would be harder, but actually it was easier. We could start off on stories, mostly the story ideas that we liked, and then we could write songs into them. We weren’t beholden to our songs to come up with episode ideas.
Brett: Yeah, last year I don’t think we wrote as many new songs because we were more cautious.
Jermaine: When we had time off, we were writing songs. We write mostly love songs, so then we have to do a certain amount of episodes that are about having a girlfriend — which is a subject matter that’s been done a lot.
Brett: By us.
Jemaine: Us, even.…”

United States of Tara Rox, Surely it will come downunder, why not show it now ? I Dont get it ! Surely Diablo Cody, Steven Spielberg and Toni Collette plus good US ratings is enough. Oh well click for latest S1E5 ep.