I had the same reaction about them seeming similar, and admittedly have not seen more than a few minutes of “The Mentalist” yet, but it looks interesting. I mean they really both come down to a guy who uses his powers of observation to be a “psychic.”

The difference seems to be that one currently pretends to be psychic so he can work for the police while the other used pretend to be psychic and now just works for the police. Yeah, I’m having trouble separating these based on the setup. It’s just that “Psych” aims more toward humor and children of the ’80s.

I had the same reaction when I saw the promo’s for “The Mentalist”. I just wish it were as funny as Psyche!

Isn’t “11th Hour” a saying, basically meaning they bring the guy in at the “11th hour”, when no one has any more ideas as to how the crime was committed, to solve a crime? My whole problem with this is that, if you know the guy is good and can solve these crimes, why wait ’til the 11th hour? Just bring him in right at the beginning and save everyone time and money.

What makes the Mentalist different from Psyche? All the write-ups of it makes it sound exactly the same to me. At least Byrd Brain and I have picked up on it.

It will be interesting to see where Life On Mars goes. The biggest missing piece from the British show that I remember was the stark difference from the proper procedural almost heartless bureaucratic police work in the present to the more intuitive, instinctive, brutal and technology-less past. Yes there were references to cell phones and computers, but it seemed out of place for Sam to be talking about working on a “hunch” to solve a crime since “hunches” and “gut instinct” are more tools of the past police work not present police work. The whole point of the British show was Sam’s constant clashing with his “proper” future/present police methodologies with past precinct’s sometimes more effective but often improper ways of doing things. As time goes on he learns to go with his gut more and teaches the others to follow the book more.

But this is probably just a case of “it’s different from the first one I saw, so it’s wrong.” (Same thing happens to me with musical revivals.) I’m glad to hear the U.S. show has fans.

Re: The Mentalist and Psych, they do sound similar on paper, but Mentalist has a darker vibe. Psych (which I also love) is almost pure comedy, while Mentalist is a drama with occasional humor. Simon Baker is terrific, and the idea of a reformed former fake psychic is intriguing. Well worth checking out.

I enjoyed My Own Worst Enemy too (in spite of the awful title, which makes it sound like a bad reality TV show).

(MINOR ELEVENTH HOUR SPOILERS…)
I was amused by the vague “science” thing in Eleventh Hour too. Other unintentional humor:
* The impassioned speech that Rufus Sewell gives to the grieving father that ends in “our constituent chemical components.”
* Marley Shelton as a bodyguard.
* Marley Shelton as a bodyguard who leaves her protectee alone all night. (What, bad guys don’t attack in the dark?)
* Marley Shelton as a bodyguard who knows she’s on call 24 hours a day but still sleeps without pajamas, so that when the panic button goes off she has to run through the hotel wearing an open bathrobe over black lingerie.

classic.

It’s kind of the equivalent of a serious cop show titled “The Retard”.

Down here in Australia-ville the characters grew out of a popular if broad sketch show in the 90s. Most of the humour in the Australian version is derived from the mangling of language, a bunch of now tired catch phrases and flaunting of all the main casts’ decidedly non-Hollywood physiques.

The US version has the decidedly un-chunky Selma Blair playing Kim, and is missing the key character in Sharon Strezleki – Kim’s trodden upon rotund nominal best friend altogether. And the language emphasis doesn’t appear to be there either.

I don’t know how you can take out so many key elements and still call it the same show – which to be fair was not the pinnacle of comedy tv to begin with.