The Mentalist

Since tonight is the season premier of the (last season :( of the) Mentalist, I thought it was an appropriate time to write a post about my near brush with Simon Baker.

Okay, that probably makes it sound more exciting than it really was, but it makes for a good memory at very least. So, when I was visiting my sister in LA we were driving around Glendale when we saw the signs that are posted when filming is going on. I should have taken a picture of one, but here’s what they look like, just so you have an idea:

I guess they use them to direct film crews where to go… or something. I’m not entirely sure, but we saw a bunch of yellow signs like that one with “CBI” written on them and we just knew in our hearts they were filming the Mentalist somewhere nearby. Shari did some searching online and confirmed that they were indeed filming in Glendale that day. Well, we decided that we would do some detective work of our own and find where they were filming. We were going to find Patrick Jane by golly.

I guess I should interrupt the story to explain that we’re really not creepers or anything. And I’m not really a star-struck kind of person. But I do really like the Mentalist. It’s pretty much the only show Spencer and I watch right now (We don’t have TV, ironically. Well we have A TV, but we only have bunny ears so I can watch Spencer.). We are kind of in love with the Mentalist and have had many a conversation about who we think Red John is. So we kind of thought it would be fun to see them in action.

So, Shari and I set off on our adventure. We followed the signs to a Hilton and were so bold as to poke around the hotel lobby and even interrogated a security guard (who wouldn’t tell us where they were filming, of course). We also questioned some poor cameraman who was so unfortunate to get stuck in an elevator with us, but he didn’t shed any light on the situation either.

Eventually we decided we’d just drive around a bit and see what we could find. We found the star’s trailers. And then a few blocks away, I spotted a camera crew and their film truck. Well, actually, what I spotted was Red John: 
So we excitedly started asking these guys when they would be filming, and they told us later that night. We geekily got our picture taken with Red John:

And we vowed to return later that night to finally see Patrick Jane in action. But though we did return later, they still hadn’t begun filming and so we never did get to meet Simon Baker. Ah well. You win some you lose some.

We still had fun though. And though it was an anticlimactic ending to our day, I was fairly proud of our detective work. It will be fun to see if the set we were on shows up in any upcoming episodes.

And speaking of film sets. Does anyone remember good ole’ Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman? Well, while we were in LA, we went to Paramount Ranch (the place where that show was filmed). It’s pretty much just been turned into a kind of public park, but the set is still up so we got to take some pictures. We were in swimsuits since we had just come from the beach. Too bad Spencer hadn’t worn his wranglers and spurs. It was a super fun place. I saw a couple taking engagement pictures there and I was thinking about how fun it would be to do a shoot there. Or maybe film a little movie starring Cowboy M Bug. So many fun possibilities.