Fox premiered a new show last night; it is amusing that they would put their new show Mental up against CBS’ hit show The Mentalist. The show stars Chris Vance as a psychiatrist who is hired to fill the position of Director of Mental Health Services of an LA hospital. Chris Vance’s previous role was in the Fox series Prison Break; that may make him familiar to some of you but not to me.

I was quite interested to see what Fox could do on this subject. If any network would be willing to tackle something new it would be Fox. I believe the problems of the mentally ill should be brought to light and a good TV show would do just that.

Dr. Gallagher is introduced to his new job by stripping naked in the admitting area in order to calm down an agitated patient. As you might expect, Dr. Gallagher is a rogue doctor that breaks every rule and has remarkable results in the process.

I think making the main character director of health services was a mistake. This show follows the pattern of all TV shows and it is a pattern that annoys me. Dr. Gallagher is able to spend his first three days on the job fixated on one patient. He also brings in two residents to help. Dr. Gallagher works with a man plagued with hallucinations. The man became violent when he went off his medicine. The next step for the man was to be committed but Dr. Gallagher saves him. We learn that the man is a talented artist but he can’t draw when he is on his medication. Dr. Gallagher sends him home with a dubious plan to keep him stable without medicine and everyone his happy.

At the start of the show the story seems to go out of its way to inform the viewer that this is a very busy city hospital with heavy demands for mental services, and its new director spends all of his time with one patient.

If I want to watch fantasy; I’ll watch fantasy. In my opinion this show has taken a good premise and pushed it over the edge. If Dr. Gallagher joined the staff as a floor psychiatrist it might have been more realistic. I’m sure they wanted to give him power to allow him the latitude to carry out his rogue methods but it just doesn’t work for me. This idea that a super talented person can say and do anything they please and show no team spirit at all is getting old. House has the patent on that idea and any other show doing it just seems like a copy cat.

I don’t think The Mentalist on CBS has anything to worry about.