Psych, The Mentalist, Unforgettable

My wife and I love the TV show Psych, shown on the USA network. Psych, entering it's 6th season, is about a goofy slacker and his uptight friend who run a fake psychic detective agency, based on the ability of one guy's ability (the goofy slacker, played by James Roday) to remember and catch intricate details with his photographic memory and personal astuteness.

After Psych came on, another show about someone with such abilities, CBS' The Mentalist came on the scene. I've only watched the first couple episodes of the The Mentalist but having watched the Psych cannon to date, found the show similar, but not engaging in the same way.

I'm sure some would say comparing Psych to The Mentalist is like comparing apples to bananas (or as Psych regularly motifs a pineapple, perhaps it'd be comparing the Psych pineapple to The Mentalist smiley face graffiti). But the comparison in these two crime shows must be made, even from the standpoint that Simon Baker, The Mentalist, previously pretended to be a psychic before entering the police force (also in California, also as a consultant).

So, apparently there is room for two detectives with unique memory skills, as both shows continue to air this year, as part of 2011's crime film line-up.

Yet, CBS is adding another show that just sounds so very similar, called Unforgettable. This time there's no fake psychic, but a unique condition, hyperthymesia, a condition/syndrome/skill that allows an individual to have a unique ability to capture all autobiographical information including all the details of an event they have experienced (such as the day of the week a day fell on).

And maybe, I'm misjudging the show, perhaps there is more to it? The source material for this show is a little different. It actually comes from the short story "The Rememberer" by J. Robert Lennon's who story can be found in the short story collect Who Can Save Us Now?: Brand-New Superheroes and Their Amazing (Short) Stories. And if there is anything that intrigues me about the show, it is the title of the compilation from which it's found.

Beyond that, it seems like same-old, same-old (and maybe I'm wrong), but if I were to guess, it would seem that this new series (staring Poppy Montgomery as New York Detective Carrie Wells, alongside Dylan Walsh and Michael Gaston) won't be one of the Fall TV heroes.

(Although, perhaps I'm underestimating the fandom that might follow Poppy from a 7 season run on another CBS show, Without a Trace.)