Word: mentalist
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That said, TV, like dreams, can speak more obliquely. Last year's big dramas were The Mentalist, Lie to Me and House--jaded hits for the era of Katrina and the subprime disaster, based on the premise that people lie all the time. Maybe 2009's America--the country that swooned over Susan Boyle--will respond to we're-all-in-this-together shows like Fox's underdog musical Glee or NBC's aptly named sitcom Community, about a diverse group of misfits getting a new start at a junior college...
There is, at first blush, no good reason for this. There is nothing unique or distinctive about The Mentalist (which is not to say that it's a bad show - more about that in a minute). There's no cutting-edge science, no fancy camera work, no how-did-they-think-of-that hook. Every week, Jane goes out, talks to people, observes details and solves uncomplicated cases the same way Columbo did 35 years ago. We've seen this a million times before on television...
...tastes - and the network serves these people perfectly. While competitors make TV to court fickle viewers distracted by video games and the Internet, CBS - with crime shows like NCIS and sitcoms like Two and a Half Men - makes TV for people who like television. (How old school is The Mentalist? You can't even watch it online...
That said, The Mentalist works because it's such an elegant example of its kind; if it's comfort food, it's prime-grade meat loaf. Much credit goes to the sly scripts, overseen by Bruno Heller (HBO's Rome), which take the viewer to familiar places by clever routes, providing a jocular corrective to the relentless noir gore of CSI et al. The mysteries are engaging but not byzantine; you can probably figure out the culprit just a step before Jane does. And who doesn't want a handsome man to make him or her feel smart...
...glad to throw in the embarrassing revelation as a freebie. There's something creepy - but delightfully so - about how Jane looks at the rest of us as simple machines whose gears he can see whirring on the surface. CBS, which gets a 60% female audience for The Mentalist, has sold Jane as a woman's fantasy: "Finally, a man who listens." But really - and entertainingly - he's more like a superman who listens...