I've been watching The Mentalist lately. I used to watch it back when it first aired, the first two seasons or thereabouts, until I got fed up with Patrick Jane. He is the main character so the audience is supposed to like him or at least empathise with him, right?

I think he is a horrible person. A benevolent sociopath. He doesn't actually care about anyone's feelings, he plays people according to his whims, and if he ever does something nice, he does it for ulterior motives or to prove that he can, to show how smart he is. Even if it's just for himself. And he thinks he is above the law, because he can charm and manipulate people to get out of whatever situation he has gotten himself.
Case to point, he kills a man he knows is not Red John, and then manipulates the jury to acquit him. Then, after goading Red John to kill another serial killer, he frames a man who committed suicide to have been the killer to cover it up, to get the FBI close the case. That's a whole lot murder, and this [paraphrased] quote from Hercule Poirot has stuck with me; after a first murder, the second one is easy.

Watching the show now, without trying to care one bit about what happens to Jane, The Mentalist is entertaining, albeit getting a bit predictable. Usually, if the murderer of the week is some of the characters introduced and has enough screen-time and interaction with other characters during the episode, I can tell who did it around thirty minute mark at the latest. So the myth-arc episodes are the more interesting ones.

I'm halfway season four now, and the whole Red John thing is starting to look kinda ridiculous. He has reached completely unrealistic, epic proportions, but I haven't taken anything about this show seriously since I started watching again from season three, so, *shrug*.

What was really a shame, was what happened with the FBI agent, Greg O'Loughlin, Van Pelt was dating and later about to marry. Eric Winter plays the romantic fiancé with a hidden side to his personality really well. I suppose it's all those years doing Days of Our Lives*.
He can do the almost too sweet, but never quite going overboard with it, guy with a completely straight face. I spoilt my self what would become of him when he first went out with Van Pelt, because I totally shipped them from the moment they were on screen together, and I really wish the storyline would have gone differently, and they would have gotten married and been happy. They were so adorable together.

Rigsby, who I know Van Pelt will get back together with, I don't like at all. He is a bumbling oaf who has no class. Van Pelt could do so much better. I don't care how much Rigsby claims to love her, to me he is just a man-child with a puppy-crush.

* From what I've seen, every male character on that show is either an outright moustache-twirling villain, or a romantic fiancé/husband who has a secret lizard-ly side to them.