Not Just Another Crime Show

The producers chalk up Mind's success to good counterprogramming (not everybody may like those maddening mysteries on Lost), and the constant presence of Patinkin, an intense Method actor who could make even the most self-assured person start popping Paxil with one piercing stare. The star is also not above improvising his way through scenes for maximum dramatic effect. ''He's a loose cannon,'' says Moore (who, by the way, may moonlight on Y&R this season to wrap up the whole he's-the-father-of-Drucilla's-baby story line). ''Mandy's not afraid to look like an ass. Sometimes his improvisation will be completely out of left field and no one will understand it but him. Other times it works. There's something bold in that.''

Patinkin — last seen as a sweater-wearing grim reaper on Showtime's Dead Like Me — likes to take it one step further by persuading the actors playing the bad guys to behave as though they were asking for his daughter's hand in marriage. ''I want to talk like we are friends, like it's a 100 percent normal conversation,'' Patinkin explains. ''That line between normal people and insane serial arsonist killers can be virtually imperceptible, and that's where the terror is. If I had to guess what it is about horror that is appealing to such a mass audience, it's how it's just a hair away from their own thinking.''

Exploring that creepy duality is enough to keep Patinkin's attention for now, but he — like just about every actor on a CBS crime show — hopes the network won't keep his character chained to crime scenes forever. ''CBS is very clear about their formula for success with these kinds of shows,'' admits the actor-singer, who plans to break up his routine by performing concerts on weekends this January. ''One doesn't want to throw the baby out with the bathwater. But it is important for this baby to have a certain kind of food to make me stay interested. It's fascinating to me how these profilers do their work. How does Jason Gideon survive this? I can't tell you that right now.''

Bernero hopes to give viewers insight into those questions as early as next season — though he won't say how. ''First we really need to understand who they are at work,'' says the former Chicago cop who co-created NBC's Third Watch. ''As the show evolves, we'll definitely do a lot more stuff.'' Until then, he's amping up the suspense: The series, which was criticized this fall for its violent kidnapped-woman-in-a-cage pilot, has an upcoming episode in January about a chemist who poisons his former employers for stealing his drug patent, and another planned for Dec. 14 that focuses on a cannibalistic killer who drinks blood to get closer to God. ''He cuts his victims and peels back the ribs to make them look like angels with wings,'' says a grossed-out Gubler. ''I don't know how we will show that.''

Nor does Patinkin — but he already knows what he'll do to prepare. ''I say a prayer for humanity, that this will never happen anywhere,'' he explains. ''I know these are only fabrications of events. But it has to be real to me. How do I live in this place 12 hours a day? It's with the basic prayer that if we save one life, we save the world. That's my way of surviving this.'' He starts to frown again. ''It's exhausting.''