The Mentalist

Have you been watching The Mentalist on channel 5? If you haven't, it's a new drama series about a TV mentalist/psychic whose wife and daughter are murdered and he later becomes a detective. It's quite good and I'm enjoying it but it has been vastly overhyped. The stories aren't bad but the script is sometimes a bit dodgy and I sense the writers aren't completely sure whether Jane (the eponymous mentalist's name is Patrick Jane) has exaggerated, if not special, powers. He swears he hasn't and that his deductions are based entirely on just 'paying attention' but then he hypnotises an unwilling subject in less than a minute and persuades her to give up information she would prefer to keep secret. Hmm.

Better written, better defined and generally excellent, in my opinion, is the obsessive compulsive detective Monk. This is a funny, touching, engaging programme that I absolutely loved until the fabulous Sharona left and it wasn't the same any more.

Anyway, I'm going to be watching the repeat of The Mentalist this week because during the first showing I'll be at the theatre to see, appropriately enough, one of the world's top mentalists, Derren Brown.