Castle Mooch

Archive for the ‘TV’ Category

I’ve mentioned before that I have a need to escape from the mundane nature of much of life into a world more interesting.  That’s why I like videogames, books, films, and TV so much.  Whilst my partner for life is happy to watch fly-on-the-wall documentaries or celebrity shows or anything with real stuff in it, I tend to gravitate towards the fiction.  I want the unreal, not the real.

This weekend we settled down to watch our newly acquired box set, Nurse Jackie.  I didn’t know what to expect, but assumed it would be a typical USA TV affair, that is approximately 22 episodes, each of which would be approximately 42 minutes in length.  Yes, I like to press the Display button on my PS3 Blu-ray remote to find out such information.  I also like to count lights and curtain tabs, but that’s for another day.  Nurse Jackie was more bite-sized than anticipated, weighing in at around 25 minutes an episode, and at only 12 episodes for the whole of season one it meant than in under 48 hours we’d watched the whole thing.

I wasn’t done with my preconceptions though, and the first episode – the pilot – successfully rewired my brain with what to expect.  Because I wasn’t expecting a character so deeply rich, so malevolent and benign, with edges you could slit your wrists on.  This wasn’t anything like the romantic staples of Grey’s Anatomy or the drama of ER.  It was more like the staggering character work of House, distilled into 25 minutes of darkly comic events, with an overarching story so bittersweet it’s like eating a lemon and sugar pancake.  If I really like a TV show then the pause-rewind-play combo gets heavy use, because I just have to watch a scene again or hear that piece of dialogue one more time.  It was only because each episode of Nurse Jackie was so short – so beautifully, exquisitely short – that I’ve still got a functioning remote.

I urge you all to give Nurse Jackie a try.  Watch the pilot, chat about how odd it was, then watch episode two.  By then you’ll be as addicted as Jackie and popping episodes like sweets.

I like to escape the real world as often as possible.  I do this either by gurning maniacally into the bathroom mirror or by watching DVD box sets of TV shows.  In fact, box sets are one of my favourite ways of escaping into an exciting new world.  The latest one to grace my PlayStation 3 was The Mentalist, starring Simon Baker.  There’s a load of other actors too, but I can’t be bothered finding them on Wikipedia.

The premise of The Mentalist is that a “psychic” – Patrick Jane, played by Baker – steps away from his old life when his actions result in a serial killer – Red John – killing his wife and child.  Jane then starts to work for the California Bureua of Investigations (CBI) as a consultant.  He helps the CBI with murder cases, by utilising his exceptional skills honed over the years of being a psychic.  He’s quite open about how fake psychics are, and there is one memorable episode where he encounters a psychic who gives him pause when saying something about his dead family.  But has he been played?  Well, watch it and see.

Jane’s skills are all about observation and misdirection, confidence and basic lying.  A powerful cocktail that gives him an edge over traditional police work, especially when he’s busy hypnotising people to get information the police would take an age to elicit.  It takes about two episodes before you realise that Jane should just be allowed to hypnotise everyone at the start, get the answer, and then we could all switch off and watch House.

I’m being harsh, The Mentalist is very watchable, but it’s just not up to the level of the best US TV shows.  This is no The West Wing or Desperate Housewives: It’s a slicker version of Miss Marple with a better looking cast.  The overarching story line – that Jane is working for the CBI so he can track down Red John – is given far too little air time.  Indeed, the best episodes are those where the Red John storyline is front and centre.

Season Two will be out on DVD later this year, and despite not being blown away by the first I’ll be buying it.  I love to escape, you see, and even an average cop show is a good enough place for me to go.  Especially one set in sunny California.