For those of you who haven't yet seen the show, here's the basic premise: Patrick Jane was a successful and fake psychic who angered a dangerous serious killer by the name of Red John by calling him out on TV. In response, Red John gruesomely murdered Jane's wife and very young daughter. Jane quits the fake psychic business since his foolish arrogance cost him his entire family and he goes to work at the California Bureau of Investigation (CBI) as a consultant. Even though he has no actual psychic powers, he is brilliant and perceptive and helps them close their cases at an alarming rate. Naturally, his not-so-secret motivation is to be able to work with them on the Red John case and get his eventual and ultimate revenge on the monster.
Team Lead is Agent Teresa Lisbon (Robin Tunney) and she and Jane have a very playful relationship, with him often acting as the mischievous child – albeit a crime-solving phenomenon. In addition to Rigsby and Van Pelt is Agent Kimball Cho (Tim Kang), who is absolutely hilarious, as he constantly plays the straight man to all of the foolishness that goes on during the course of a case. Last, but not least, is the head of the CBI, Virgil Minelli (Gregory Itzin), who tries his best to keep Lisbon and her off-the-rails team in line. It's really hard to pick a favorite, because they are all so terrific in their own ways.
During the course of Season One, the team will encounter everything from a Red John copycat to wealthy men and women killed in spas, their own homes, and even run down by their own cars; a murdered surfer girl; a teenaged boy supposedly killed by a witch; an arsonist murderer; a casino bigwig whose hand is found; some ex-mobsters in the Witness Protection system; an art thief tied to a murder; and even a group of wealthy women who hold such dark secrets that one of them is murdered over them. And, of course, the season wraps up with an episode that takes Jane and the team one step closer to Red John. Seriously, they go all over the place, both literally and figuratively, but every episode is supremely entertaining. While it has all the makings of a successful procedural drama, the wonderful humor that the characters bring with them keeps things lighthearted, even though the subject matter may be dark and disturbing.
I'm thrilled that The Mentalist is making the jump to Blu-ray and starting with The Mentalist: The Complete First Season is as good a place as any. The team travels to beautiful locations all over California, so the step up to high def makes each scene explode with color and crispness. Plus, if you have a surround sound setup, you will really benefit from the audio enveloping you with everything happening in the episode.
Special features are slim, but thoroughly enjoyable. There's a Gag Reel, a handful of Deleted Scenes and two featurettes clocking in at 20-30 minutes each. The first is a Meet the Cast wrap-up where each of the actors, as well as creator Bruno Heller talk about what it is like to work on the show. The other featurette has individuals discussing mentalists vs. psychics and you have folks from both sides, as well as former law enforcement weighing in. Both featurettes were highly entertaining.
If you haven't yet had the pleasure of watching this delightful show, then The Mentalist: The Complete First Season is the perfect place to jump right in. Highly, highly recommended.
