White Collar

Started watching the series White Collar (2009). Seems pretty good.

A known forger asks the FBI to help with a book being stolen from him: “Please, help me get back my goddamn Bible.”

This series seems to have the rather common but nice pattern where the good guys team solves the crime of the week, while the reformed main hero is working on a piece of his own subgame. However, I realized what makes that work is when the two puzzles have a cool connection. Something about the weekly case helps the hero solve his own problem. Besides being more interesting that way, it makes it feel like the hero is doing the right thing by working with the rest of the team. But I noticed that in the first three episodes that connection is missing. A common, rather forceful but working method, is to make entire episodes connected to the hero’s quest and let the other episodes stay weekly things. For example in Mentalist the Red John episodes, or X-Files, or Babylon 5. Probably loads of examples.

Watching more the TV series White Collar. I got curious about the building Neal lives in and explored Google Maps some. I found out Manhattan is freaking huge. I mean I suppose I “knew” that. My country’s whole police force wouldn’t be nearly big enough to handle that district.

Looking at the map of Manhattan, I instantly understood the Avenues and West/East streets. I never realized it was that simple a system.

Mozzie is invited to search Peter’s house for electronic bugs. The wife says “Hey! I don’t think he bugged the dog.” Mozzie: “Amateur…”

Mozzie has a female friend and when Neal tries to solve a problem for them, Mozzie snaps: “You ever wonder why you’ve never been introduced? She meets you and suddenly I become the quirky friend.”