Two weeks after 9/11, CBS unveiled an oddly appealing little drama series on Tuesday nights called &#8220;The Guardian.&#8221;</p><p>It starred someone few Americans had heard of, an Australian actor named Simon Baker, as a soft-spoken attorney who, to avoid being disbarred for a drug conviction, agreed to perform community service as a legal advocate for kids in trouble.</p><p>Social work is not a sure-fire idea for a hit prime-time TV show, but &#8220;The Guardian&#8221; stuck around for four years of modest ratings thanks in large part to its unlikely lead actor.</p><p>And so, in its usual conservative fashion, CBS has signed up Baker for another series (his third with the network) that marries his &#8220;Guardian&#8221; role to a &#8220;CSI&#8221;-style police procedural. &#8220;The Mentalist&#8221; is safe, predictable, manufactured crime drama &#8230; and it works.</p><p>Baker plays Patrick Jane, a onetime TV psychic who helped people connect to their loved ones on &#8220;the other side.&#8221; (His character has two first names, just like a real-life celebrity.) Now he uses his actual gift &#8212; that of keen observation &#8212; to help the California Bureau of Investigation solve tough crimes.</p><p>Though clearly sorry for duping people into thinking they could speak with dead, he&#8217;s not exactly the repentant type. That should sound familiar to fans of Baker&#8217;s old show. So he spars with the senior agent, Lisbon (Robin Tunney), whose unit Jane is assigned to, and he tells off an overzealous CSI, calling him &#8220;a ghoul&#8221; who gets off thinking about dead people.</p><p>Because &#8220;The Mentalist&#8221; is a crime-solving ensemble show, Baker once again does not have to carry this show on his shoulders, any more than he had to on &#8220;The Guardian.&#8221;</p><p>After all these years, I don&#8217;t really know if he&#8217;s that great of an actor, because he&#8217;s rarely had to stretch. But if he isn&#8217;t, then hats off to him for convincing us that beneath that silent, ruggedly handsome exterior is a tortured jerk who has to push himself to do good deeds.</p><p>That and the overly telegraphed sexual tension with Agent Lisbon give &#8220;The Mentalist&#8221; the personality to set itself apart from all the other blood-spatter shows on CBS.</p><p><hr class="infobox-hr-separator" /> <div class="infobox"> <strong><span class="infobox-head">TONIGHT ON TV </span></strong><br /> &#8220;The Mentalist&#8221; premieres at 8 tonight on CBS.</p><p></div>