Since I'd been enjoying the backlog of Monk I figured I'd check out another one of the USA Network's light entertainment shows now in Amazon's archives. Specifically I decided to watch the first episode of Psych, a show about a hustler with extremely sharp powers of observation who solves crimes and pretends to be a psychic. (Similar premise to The Mentalist, a CBS show from about the same time.)
Anyway, I don't think I lasted ten minutes. The hero was so annoying that when a bunch of humorless cops were threatening to send him to prison because they suspected he was the accomplice of some criminal or other, I was rooting for them.
The problem is personality, or the aspects of his personality that are being highlighted. The lead character being a Joe Cool with an "aren't I a scamp" attitude can get old really fast. Especially in detective fiction I think you need to find something else.
2 comments:
Intrigued by your comment, and never having heard of the show, I took a quick look at the trailer on imdb. I see what you mean. I'd have to agree too with Jer's remark that it looks as though it was a show made for Nickelodeon.
Speaking of Jer: 'the lead character being a joe cool with an 'aren't i a scamp' attitude' captures perfectly my recent take on reading my first travis mcgee, which actually included such first-person narrative meanderings as 'oh, mcgee, you charming, disarming, irrepressible, devil-may-care rogue. you slick, smooth, seductive spinner of yarns & winner of hearts...' (i'm paraphrasing, as i got rid of the book, but, i swear, it was truly that awful...)
The Nickelodeon comparison is apt, I think. There's a certain tendency towards short attention spans that starts in children's media but doesn't stop there. The creators may or may not be aware that they're catering to it.
On Travis McGee, I'm sure I'll eventually read one of the novels out of curiosity, but I think I discussed this with Jerry. Some books, and some book series, are meant as pure escapism. I'm not entirely above this. But it's also true that these books don't have to be all that well-written. Who knows? The fact that the lead character is somewhat obnoxious might be part of the appeal.
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