Mr. Monk

This weekend saw the return of two major USA crime procedural shows, Monk and Psych. In a New York Times piece from last week, Mike Hale writes about Monk and its role in establishing the humorous hour-long crime genre, and he also mentions the similarities between these cable programs and shows like CBS’s The Mentalist, which was wildly successful last year. Hale points out that the season premiere episode of Psych mocks The Mentalist for ripping off its premise, but suggests that The Mentalist owes much more to Monk (and further, detective fiction all the way back to Sherlock Holmes).

Hale is right, of course, to point out the incredibly tight-knit chain of influence in crime drama television and the mystery genre more broadly. In wanting to reach farther back into television and literary history, though Hale ignores a crucial shared quality of Psych and The Mentalist that speaks volumes about the evolving figure of the detective.

Shawn Spencer on Psych

The premise of Psych is that a goofy guy named Shawn Spencer and his sidekick Gus help solve crimes for the Santa Barbara Police Department, except Shawn pretends to use psychic power to glean information about the investigation. Shawn’s impressive intellect allows him to scan the room for clues and then guess information accurately enough to persuade his clients that he can actually read their minds. In order to better sell the ruse, Shawn and Gus close their eyes and try to access magic spirits, speak in tongues while translating for ghosts, and use any available form of psychic-y nonsense to distract their clients while figuring out the crime. CBS’s show The Mentalist is essentially the same, except Patrick Jane doesn’t pretend to use ESP and instead relies on tools like hypnotism, behavioral science, and psychology to provide uncanny hints about the murderer’s identity. While Jane claims not to use psychic powers, his hunches and suggestions are as accurate as they are frequently inexplicable.

Patrick Jane on The Mentalist

The connection here is much more than just “quirky detective notices things you don’t,” which is essentially the legacy left by Sherlock Holmes and Monk. Fictional detectives like Shawn Spencer and Patrick Jane play with the idea that intelligence is a form of magic, accessible only to those with otherworldly gifts. While Sherlock Holmes perpetually scolded Watson for failing to see what was right in front of him, Psych and The Mentalist reward incuriosity by building a wall between our faulty observational abilities and the detective’s supernatural skill. The pretend psychic power is a classic misdirection – while we laugh at the poor saps who think the detective has actual magic power, we actually fall into that very same belief, substituting intelligence for mystical muscle.

Detectives have always been figures of impressive mental strength, and Sherlock Holmes enjoyed flaunting his towering intellect, but the best of them have always been relentlessly human. When Colonel Hastings clucked in amazement at a stroke of particular genius, Poirot always reminded him that it was merely “the little grey cells,” the same brain as anyone else. Peter Wimsey was certainly intelligent, and would often come to a conclusion after dramatic moments of pacing the floor, but he was always plagued by doubt regarding the morality of his actions. Adam Dalgliesh does a good job, and nearly always gets his man, but success comes more from careful interviewing and forensic footwork than an uncanny acumen. The problem with a detective whose intelligence morphs into magic is that he is in danger of no longer being human, not a psychic-detective but instead a computer-detective. As fun and entertaining as a computer-detective might be to watch, a sharp spectacle of diagnostic and investigative skill is nowhere near as absorbing as a portrait of a human detective.