Everything old is new again

I forgot to mention that because Fringe wasn't on this week, I tried watching The Mentalist instead. Everybody has been raving about how good this show is, but I was wondering how a standard procedural could really be so interesting. Well, it is just because it's so well-made. The episode I saw was like an uber-procedural, with everything perfectly in place. We tend to think that new forms are the most noteworthy, but sometimes to create a masterpiece, all you have to do is perfectly craft the ultimate example of an already well-known genre. (Which, come to think of it, is what the Bee Gees have done time and again over the course of their careers.)