I watched Mental last night, and quite frankly, I wasn’t as disappointed as I thought I’d be.

*pause for collective gasp from the audience*

Now, don’t get me wrong. I wasn’t blown away. I wasn’t even impressed (well, with some things I was, but more on that later); I’m just saying I wasn’t as disappointed as reviews led me to believe I’d be.

In case you didn’t watch it, here’s the gist:

Dr. Jack Gallagher, after working as some amazing doctor with Doctors Without Borders in Somalia (I think?) and running a clinic for veterans with PTSD in Vermont (I think?) gets hired at LA’s Wharton Memorial Hospital as the Director of Mental Health Services. Naturally, all the other psychiatrists feel a bit jilted that they weren’t hired, so, tension ensues. Couple that jealousy (and arrogance - a few of the doctors were just plain arrogant) with Gallagher’s unorthodox ways of doing business and, well, you pretty much have the first episode of Mental: A bit of a beatnik shrink doling out unconventional methods amidst a resistant and mistrustful staff.

Now, for my thoughts.

PROS

• Gallagher is unorthodox, and I like unorthodox. Sure, unorthodox isn’t always going to work with mental health treatments, but for purposes of entertainment (and that’s what we’re dealing with here folks - a television show), if handled properly, it could work.
• Gallagher is all about involving the patients as much as possible. After he announces he’s restructuring the staff meetings to include the patients, a shocked Dr. Artis questions, “You want us to discuss treatments and diagnoses in front of the patients?” and he replies, “They have a right to be involved in their own recoveries.” Hello. Involving the patients in their own recoveries is a good message.
• The show uses lightweight special effects to convey what the patients are seeing and feeling. Last night’s main patient, Vincent Martin, has schizophrenia and experiences delusions. Instead of just hearing about what Martin sees, we’re able to see it for ourselves. (Of course, these special effects could become overkill, in which case they’d then move to the con list.)
• Even though he prescribes Martin an unconventional treatment method for schizophrenia, Gallagher (and the writers) takes great care to get the point across that Martin will go back on his medications if the alternative path doesn’t work. This was a good message to viewers, I think. (Of course, we don’t get to see any of the results, which helped put this same bullet on the con list, below).
• I’m okay with Mental being very much like House (an unpolished House, granted, but the similarities are there). I like House, and I’m interested in mental health, so I’m interested in seeing the two combined (apart from, you know, Dr. House’s own issues). Not everyone will be, though, so this is also on the con list, below.

CONS

• If I’m not mistaken, Mental has already aired on Fox International Channels in Latin America, Europe, and Asia (at least, that’s how I understood it when I wrote about it last year), and because of that I’m not really sure about things like the series’ pilot; however, this first episode smacked of PILOT. The actors seemed a bit uncomfortable in their roles and with each other, and the writers seemed like they felt they had to cram in every bit of “shock factor” they could in order to prove something
• Continuing with that, Gallagher’s reputation as a doctor who prefers unconventional methods would have been more believable, as far as entertainment goes, if the writers had allowed it to unfold organically over time. As it is, everything is crammed down our throats in the first episode.
• I’m all for taking a nonprescription drug route for managing mental health - when you can - as well as coupling more natural treatments (like yoga, meditation, music therapy, writing, etc.) with traditional medications - when you can. I know people who use these methods to manage conditions like depression and anxiety with great success; however, schizophrenia is a severe mental illness and I think the Mental writers walked a thin line last night when they sent Vincent Martin riding off into the sunset without his Thorazine*. I’m not a doctor and I don’t have schizophrenia, so I have no experience or any way of knowing how possible it is to effectively treat and manage schizophrenia without medication (I have, however, read that John Nash prefers it that way). I think the writers would have done better to let us see how Martin handled schizophrenia without his usual medication, rather than just telling us that’s the path he was going to take and leaving it at that. Story lines like that - especially with their abrupt endings - could put a lot of skewed ideas about mental illness treatment out there.
• Unless I missed it, there was no “theme” song. Did anyone else catch a theme song? Trivial, I know, but come on - House enters our homes each week to the backdrop of Massive Attack’s ridiculously awesome and very fitting “Teardrop.” Step it up, Mental.
• And, on that note, Mental is probably going to be a bit too much like House for many viewers’ tastes.

Overall, I think it’s going to take a little time to find out if Mental ever becomes comfortable with itself; if it ever finds its zone. If every show turns out like the first one, then no, I don’t recommend tuning in each week. Still, I’m going to give it a few more episodes before I start trying to figure out how else to fill my 9 p.m. Tuesday slot.

* Please note that my reference to Thorazine is a nod to Dr. Gallagher’s warning to Martin that if he became out of control when they removed his restraints, he would get a “one way ticket to Thorazineville.”

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