I very rarely make accurate ratings predictions, so I have to make a big deal of them when I do. And with news that The Mentalist scored nearly 20 million viewers the other night, I can’t help noting that I kinda-sorta pegged it for a hit last fall:
The Mentalist is, in the end, a crime procedural, and thus will probably join my list of the myriad perfectly good crime procedurals I won’t make time for. But I wouldn’t be surprised if a lot of other people do. CBS may not be trying to do anything exciting this season, but in returning to its meat and potatoes, it may prove that—like Patrick Jane—it knows its audience better than they know themselves.
OK, it’s not exactly Nostradamus, but still. I will admit I haven’t watched The Mentalist in weeks, but I’ve been recently watching a review screener of Lie to Me (Fox’s procedural with Tim Roth as a human lie detector). With House still up in the ratings, there seems to be an endless appetite for shows about people who tell lies and the arrogant/cynical/manipulative geniuses who find them out. (That’s the basic premise of House, right? That the human urge to lie is often even greater than the urge for self-preservation.)
Simple odds suggest that at least some of you are watching The Mentalist too, so I’ll put it to you: what’s the appeal?