A List Of Things Thrown Five Minutes Ago

NOW YOU SEE IT: As part of my continuing mission to see things that a lot of people see, but that we've never blogged about here, I DVRed both episodes of The Mentalist that aired this week. And honestly, I still don't get it. There are a bunch of similarities to Castle--cocky outsider uses his special skills/knowledge to help cops solve crimes and clashes with his "by the book" partner. The couple of episodes I've seen arguably have better mystery elements than Castle typically does, but suffer from the same problem Castle does in that every character aside from the lead is little more than a cipher, though they're given more to do than the Castle ensemble is. The other problem is the sexual tension and chemistry between Fillion/Katic is much better than the Baker/Tunney chemistry and tension--also, the Castle writers are much better at writing snappy dialogue for their hero. Mentalist also replaces the comic family stuff Castle does so well with a broody, yet uninteresting, backstory for its hero. It fits in well with CBS's lineup of seemingly endlessly interchangable crime shows, though, so I can see where it comes from, but I'll be sticking with Captain Tightpants rather than the charming rogue who seduced Anne Hathaway in Devil Wears Prada.