Random comparison of The Mentalist and Castle.

[sarren]

Same format: female lead homicide detective is forced to take on an eccentric arrogant handsome male 'advisor'. She has a team of two good looking 30-something male officers, who are partners (although The Mentalist also has a naive inexperienced young female officer). The overarching plot of each is the murder of one of the main character's loved ones.

However the feel of the shows are completely different. Castle is a fun, feel-good show. The lead female detective, Beckett, is extremely competent, and keeps Castle in his place. Castle is friendly, quirky, has a high opinion of himself, but is overall, a nice guy, and when not solving murders and bantering with the team, spends the rest of his time enjoying a loving relationship with his mother and daughter. He helps Beckett solve cases but he doesn't take over, and sometimes he's WRONG. Also, they have major UST. The two male detectives are adorable - very slashy, and the four of them make a great team. In fact, I would totally be up for a foursome fic. It's one of my favourite shows.

'The Mentalist' is NOT nice. The lead female, Lisbon, is hard to empathise with. She comes across as bossy and not especially competent - mainly because she has no control over Jane and because he is always right and solves ALL the cases. Jane is tormented by the death of his wife and child at the hands of a serial killer. He is very arrogant, very rude, flagrantly ignores rules - and anything Lisbon tells him to do if it suits him. He also has her team running around doing stuff for him behind Lisbon's back - even if she's explicitly said not to. I actually only watched about half a dozen episodes of first season and couldn't be bothered. However, the other day I happened to have season 2 in front of me and gave it another go. I like it a lot more - Lisbon seems to have at least a little bit of authority over Jane, and the team are much more cohesive, and like an actual effective team. Jane still gets to show off and solve all the cases but at least he does it with the team instead of in spite of them. They all seem to like each other now. Still not a happy show, though.




Unusual (for me) fic rec: Patrick Jane/Grace Ven Pelt. This a pwp, but it's about personal boundaries. You don't really need to have seen the show - the writer is good enough to convey everything you need to know about the characters. It's lovely.
Love and Affection and Respect for Personal Boundaries