DVD Review The Mentalist: The Complete Sixth Season DVD Review (1 Viewer)

The Mentalist: The Complete Sixth Season DVD Review

The producers of CBS' hit procedural The Mentalist finally brought an end to their long-extended storyline with serial killer Red John during the sixth season of the show (two seasons too late according to many who had once celebrated the ingeniously plotted caper series). Wisely, they only spent about a third of the season wrapping up the mystery of his apprehension and identification before rebooting the series with some new supporting regulars and a refreshing change of venue. But the show's core component, a supremely intuitive man who solves baffling crimes in ingenious ways, remained as entertaining as ever.

Studio: Warner Brothers

Distributed By: N/A

Video Resolution and Encode: 480P/MPEG-2

Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1

Audio: English 5.1 DD, Other

Subtitles: English SDH, Spanish, French, Portuguese, Other

Rating: Not Rated

Run Time: 15 Hr. 30 Min.

Package Includes:

Disc Type: DVD-9 (dual layer)

Region: 1

Release Date: 09/30/2014

MSRP: $59.98

The Production Rating: 4/5

Season six begins with California Bureau of Investigation consultant Patrick Jane (Simon Baker) having narrowed down his list of Red John suspects to seven. Over the course of the season’s first eight episodes, two of the seven are killed outright (the first in the season premiere, the other a few episodes later) before he finally gets the other five together in the same room to subject them to his very special brand of examination. With Red John having killed his wife and daughter a decade earlier, Jane is finally face-to-face with their murderer (though all five of these suspects are people he has interacted with during the show’s six season run). While he’s unquestionably on the hunt for Red John, Patrick and the CBI team: leader Teresa Lisbon (Robin Tunney), team muscle Kimble Cho (Tim Kang), and team lovebirds (who will eventually marry at some point during these eight episodes) Wayne Rigsby (Owain Yeoman) and Grace Van Pelt (Amanda Righetti) also continue their routine criminal investigations which happen to coincide with all of the seven Red John suspects in one way or another. To say that the eventual unmasking and resolution of the Red John story is a bit anticlimactic doesn’t quite do justice to some very nicely achieved twists and engaging action scenes to get to that moment (though Patrick’s overly lengthy pursuit of a fleeing Red John in the eighth episode is rather absurd, and the identity of the “mastermind” wasn’t entirely satisfying), but it’s a great relief to have that particular story arc put neatly away for the rest of the season.The reboot jumps two years into the future and once the dust has settled, the show returns to its lighter and more engaging side of being a crime procedural. Jane is persuaded to return to the United States and work for the FBI based in Austin, Texas (the CBI having been disbanded), but he won’t agree unless certain conditions are met including recruiting Teresa Lisbon from her post as a sheriff of a small town in the northwest to work with him in Austin. With a new boss Dennis Abbott (Rockmond Dunbar) and a new handler Agent Kim Fischer (Emily Swallow), things seem like they’re going to be different for Jane in this new environment, but it only takes an episode or two before Jane resumes his antic way of dealing with criminal investigations (Jane really fashions some loony schemes to catch the bad guys in these episodes) with his new boss and handler finally conceding that his methods while unorthodox do close cases and solve the seemingly unsolvable.During this reboot, remnants of the old CBI continue to haunt Jane, Lisbon, Cho, Van Pelt, and Rigsby: namely, an unknown entity who’s methodically taking out all of the former CBI agents who caused him grief (in earlier seasons of the show). That several-episode story arc (which effectively writes out Rigsby and Van Pelt from the series) along with a later one which involves human trafficking and illegal organ harvesting occupy the FBI agents for a good chuck of the second half of the season. Love is also in the air as Lisbon is romanced by an FBI agent Marcus Pike (Pedro Pascal) who’s being transferred to Washington, D.C. and wants Lisbon to come with him as an agent and as his wife. This sets Jane on his own inner struggles with his feelings toward his longtime work partner which come to a head in the season finale.Here are the twenty-two episodes spread over five discs in the sixth season set:1 – The Desert Rose2 – Black-Winged Redbird3 – Wedding in Red4 – Red Listed5 – The Red Tattoo6 – Fire and Brimstone7 – The Great Red Dragon8 – Red John9 – My Blue Heaven10 – Green Thumb11 – White Lines12 – The Golden Hammer13 – Black Helicopters14 – Grey Water15 – White as the Driven Snow16 – Violets17 – Silver Wings of Time18 – Forest Green19 – Brown Eyed Girls20 – Il Tavolo Bianco21 – Black Hearts22 – Blue Bird

Video Rating: 4.5/5 3D Rating: NA

The series is broadcast in 1080i on CBS with the 1.78:1 television aspect ratio, and these downconverted 480p transfers look on the whole very good indeed. Flesh tones are very natural and appealing, and color registration is perfection. Sharpness is good to very good with only occasional soft shots. Unusually, there is next to no aliasing or moiré patterns often seen in standard definition transfers. The video quality as produced from a good upconverting player is a reasonable substitute for the lack of high definition transfers. Each episode has been divided into either 6 or 7 chapters depending on the presence of a recap at the beginning of the episode.

Audio Rating: 4.5/5

The Dolby Digital 5.1 sound design is a lot more active than one would expect for a procedural series. Music is a constant inhabitant of the soundfield, and interesting uses of split surrounds into the various channels can be found in practically every episode. Even the LFE channel has deep bass rumblings during tense scenes and, of course, during explosions which sometimes come as a shock. This is one of the best sound designs and implementations on DVD for a series that is not science fiction oriented.

Special Features Rating: 2/5

Deleted Scenes: five deleted scenes are spread across four of the five discs in this set.Patrick Jane: Redeemed, Recovered, Restored (15:01): producers Bruno Heller, Chris Long, and Tom Szentgyorgyi and cast members Simon Baker, Robin Tunney, and Tim Kang discuss the wrapping up of the Red John storyline and the reboot which pumped new life into the series.Enclosed Booklet: an illustrated booklet contains color stills and complete information for each episode.

Overall Rating: 4/5

The Mentalist was renewed by CBS for one more shortened thirteen-episode season, and with the ending of season six being something of a surprise, the final season should be an interesting one. The DVD box set for season six while not presenting the series in its greatest light (only high definition and lossless audio could do that) nevertheless offers an entertaining mix of comedy and drama to the crime procedural genre and is certainly recommended.

Reviewed By: Matt Hough

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