This Summer's Viewing (Part1)

When I was a kid, outside of the traditional Catholic practices, Holy Week meant staying put in a suddenly abandoned city, baking in the summer heat in front of the television as we watched marathon reruns of Father Dowling Mysteries or Murder, She Wrote, because nothing else was showing. When I was a teenager, it meant staying put in the suddenly abandoned city, baking in the summer heat in front of the television as we watched marathon episodes of Seventh Heaven, partly because nothing else interesting was showing.

How the DVD has changed things! In the third decade of my life, which is creeping in a little bit too fast for my comfort, I spend part of Holy Week, yes, still vegging out in front of the telly, baking in the heat, and catching up on the television series I had missed out on as a working girl. A good chunk of my time was spent on catching up with The Mentalist, which, I’m happy to report, still manages to put me to sleep, despite how much I just love Simon Baker and his quirky, arrogant, yet angel-faced character Patrick Jane. There’s something relaxing about Jane, I think.

I know I’ve written about The Mentalist before, but here’s a quick backgrounder. Jane used to be a fake medium with a successful television show in which he “communicated” with the audience’s dearly departed. In one moment of recklessness or arrogance, he makes some disparaging comments about a serial killer known as Red John on nationwide television, later finding out that he had angered the killer enough for him to kill Jane’s wife and young daughter.

Red John leaves a smiley face drawn in the victims’ blood—a smiley that would appear every now and then as Red John and Jane continue the dance between predator and prey. Jane quit his profession and signed up to work as a consultant for the California Bureau of Investigation, where he immediately becomes an invaluable asset, thanks to his skills at cold reading, hypnotism, observation and deep understanding of the human psyche. But just because Jane is on the side of the cops doesn't mean he's moved on from the Red John incident. On the contrary—he's out for revenge, which is his sole motivation for being the CBI. Or maybe not. With Patrick Jane, you can never tell.

Jane belongs to a longer and longer line of quirky characters with keen, if not genius, powers of observation. Here are some others that come to mind:

Shawn Spencer in Psych. Shawn Spencer (James Roday), like Jane, is a fake psychic who ends up being a consultant for the Santa Barbara Police Department. As a young boy, his policeman father trained him to be very observant. Of course, his photographic memory is a big plus. The big difference here is that they still don't know he's not a real psychic.

Adrian Monk in Monk. Adrian Monk (Tony Shalhoub), the obsessive-compulsive former policeman—who, like Jane, works as a consultant for the police force after his own personal tragedy (also, like Jane's, the murder of his wife)—most likely set the template for characters like Jane and shows like The Mentalist. He's the ultimate outsider-hero; the oddball who manages to be invaluable in solving cases.

Gil Grissom in CSI: Las Vegas. Gil Grissom (William Petersen), the science geek who can explain everything away with, well, science.

Gregory House in House, M.D. House (Hugh Laurie) The doctor everyone loves and hates is a genius diagnostician who also wield keen powers of observation on top of his medical genius. Yes, like Monk, he's very much an oddball too.

Then there's Lieutenant Columbo (Peter Falk) in Columbo, Father Frank Dowling (Tom Bosley) in Father Dowling Mysteries, and the author Jessica Fletcher (Angela Lansbury) in Murder, She Wrote.

It seems like murder and mystery has always made up my summer viewing.

But I ain't seen the very much recommended Lie to Me yet.

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