Robin Tunney and Simon Baker, The Mentalist.

Settling in with the TiVo on a horrible wet and cold afternooon, I came across The Mentalist. Maybe Simon Baker was sending brain waves out of the machine, or maybe it just couldn't contain his killer smile.

I wasn't that hot on it last year, too predictable and all. But last week's ep, giving co-star Robin Tunney top billing as, of all things, the chief suspect in the murder of a serial child rapist, was tons of fun. And there was Jerry "Hands" Espinson, or at least Christian Clemenson, who played him on Boston Legal. This time, he was a shrink.

Maybe Tunney's Teresa Lisbon did do it. She sure couldn't remember the night in question. Naturally, The Mentalist figured it all out, but I didn't, though one of my suspicions proved true.

We're still digging CSI at our house -- we usually ride these things to the bitter end, and that seems a long way away for CSI, even if Billy Petersen has left -- and it's great to have Jorja Fox back. Coming after CSI on Thursday nights, The Mentalist is quite "compatible," as they say in the network programming biz, and Tunney's every bit as good -- maybe better -- than Fox. They've opened the show up quite a bit since the first few episodes, and the ensemble helps dilute the know-it-all smugness of The Mentalist, which the ladies seem to like, but which annoyed me enough last season to keep the show off my watch list. It's on  it, now.