My Latest Obsession

[paulak_rumin8]

Okay, so I'm swinging back around this way since it has been a few weeks. Currently, I'm immersing myself in The Mentalist fandom. It's a strange entrance into this one. I first encountered The Mentalist via a rec for a fanvid, and I found the vid rather intriguing. That led me to Wikipedia, followed by a viewing of episode clips off Youtube, and eventually FF.net. I was really loving the concept and falling hard for the Jane/Lisbon characters when it occured to me I still hadn't viewed an entire episode. So I remedied that earlier this week and watched one on the CBS site. Wow, this really is an attractive program for me.

The only reservation I have right now is the gore factor. It's a police procedural, like CSI and Criminal Minds, which I typically find distastefully graphic in the portrayal of murders. My imagination really doesn't need nor want that much help. Therefore, I've historically avoided even venturing into such viewing, regardless of the extensive popularity of these programs.

The Mentalist may end up being an exception though. It gives a painfully angsty background to a main character who is good-looking, ridiculously brilliant, and appealingly flawed. The dynamic between Patrick Jane and Teresa Lisbon is so simultaneously powerful and understated, it made me squee on first viewing. First viewing! And that was a season 5 episode.

This is such a terrific diversion from real life, which has been continuing on the same, tiresome path it was coursing the last time I mentioned it. I'd mention it again, but why be redundant? Same song, next verse. Yadda, yadda, yadda.

The only other thing I wanted to do with this post was link to an exceptional Mentalist fanfic that stands alone as a terrific romance/thriller, even with little prior knowledge of the show itself. The author is herself pretty interesting, and I recommend perusing both her current story and her profile. A reader's caveat, however: this lady gives new meaning to the term "evil cliffhanger."

http://www.fanfiction.net/s/8911448/1/Rebuilding-the-Sun

Comments

[actiaslunaris]

The Mentalist isn't quite like CSI, because the gore and violence isn't typically the focus of the show. It's only in the last season or so that the show has been developing the relationship between Patrick and Teresa, but the depth of it has always been there. The show starts in place where their friendship is already quite solid.

You're not the only one who's been sucked into a show like that! I think I've followed that path a couple of times in my history!

Thanks for the rec. I'll try reading it soon, because while I like this pairing, it seems to attract a lot of younger writers, and so I get apathetic about searching out fic.

[paulak_rumin8]

You can see I can't really comment on CSI. Just the snippets I've seen turned me off, and I've still only watched one episode of Mentalist. Funny how I can enjoy a fandom without feeling particularly compelled to spend a lot of time with it.

I saw a whole lot of uninteresting fluff on ff.net for that fandom. I'm sure you're right about it drawing a younger crowd. It's funny how some of my 20-something romanticism has taken a rather jaded bent here on the crux of 40. ;) What a thing to say on the eve of Valentine's Day! Anyway, I did find that particular fanfic head and shoulders above most stuff I've read in many fandoms.