The TV-on-DVD floodgates opened Tuesday, with the release of full seasons of Modern Family, Hung, Mike & Molly, Hawaii Five-O (old and new), Raising Hope and The Red Green Show, plus the miniseries The Kennedys. But let's hear it for the mystery hours, in which investigators with phenomenal powers of reasoning spring traps or make crucial connections at the last moment, which is to say before the last commercial. Three of them popped up this week.
The Mentalist: The Complete Third Season (24 episodes) remains a tonal roller-coaster. Some weeks, the spirit is as light as this kind of show permits. Crime consultant Patrick Jane (a winning Simon Baker) displays his crinkly-eyed grin as he runs rings round detective Teresa Lisbon (Robin Tunney) and her teammates, two of whom were briefly an item and one of whom still carries a torch for the other, while a third does a spot-on impression of Jack Webb's just-the-facts-ma'am deadpan in the old Dragnet series.
Other weeks, the mood is grim. Red John, the serial killer who murdered Jane's family, proves as fiendishly elusive as Keyser Soze in The Usual Suspects. Good people die. To those missed the season finale, I will say only that it's a nail-biter.
Castle: The Complete Third Season (24 episodes) has an occasional dark moment, but mainly it's a frothy concoction of banter and crime-solving, with mystery writer and police consultant Richard Castle (Nathan Fillion from Firefly and Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog) racing New York police detective Kate Beckett (Stana Katic) to discover how each improbable death was committed. Bodies are found in trees, in medieval costumes, you name it.
Recurring characters include Castle's mother (wise-cracking) and daughter (winsome). Susan Sullivan and Molly C. Quinn are fine in the roles, but you can just sense the writers struggling to find something for them to do in what is pretty much the Castle and Beckett Show. The same tension showed when Doris Roberts joined Remington Steele and Barbara Barrie played Hal Linden's wife in Barney Miller. Oh, right – have to include a scene for that character.
The new kid on the block is Body of Proof: The Complete First Season (nine episodes). Dana Delany ( Desperate Housewives) plays a former neurosurgeon who is now a brilliant crime-solving medical examiner, runs rings round the detectives and, borrowing from House, snaps at everyone while testing her crew at the Philadelphia County Medical Center. Her medical officer (Nicholas Bishop), a former cop, plays Jiminy Cricket when she alienates too many people. He's also the audience's proxy, since, not having a medical background, he gives the doctors an excuse to translate their jargon for the layman.
All three sets have bonus features, including a panel of criminologists discussing Red John ( The Mentalist), a chat with crime writers ( Castle) and advice on how to create a dead body for the camera ( Body of Proof). After a few weeks, you'll be able to outwit your own police force and earn smirking privileges.