- Network: CBS
- Series Premiere Date: Sep 23, 2008
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Critic Reviews
- Critic score
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- By date
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This 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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In its solidly crafted premiere, the CBS drama demonstrates admirable restraint while still telling a reasonably interesting story.
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The Mentalist is safe, predictable, manufactured crime drama … and it works.
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Psychological 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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Stunning opening suggests the potential. It's Baker's show, and he excels. But guest stars impress, too.
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The 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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The formula--must find murderer of beautiful woman before last commercial break--predates the dinosaurs, but also incorporates some satisfying twists.
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The 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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Because 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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The 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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The 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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It's not groundbreaking TV, but the pilot does a good job of introducing the characters, their relationships, their potential relationships.
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Mr. Baker keeps The Mentalist easy on the eyes and brain.
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Baker and his wily line readings and intimidatingly sly stares can snap the show out of occasional stupors.
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Its 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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Its 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.
Awards & Rankings
User score distribution:
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Positive: 225 out of 258
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Mixed: 22 out of 258
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Negative: 11 out of 258
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LordofFoodDec 29, 2009
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Debbies.Sep 30, 2008
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BrandonNSep 28, 2008The first episode gave me me new hope for television.