Nancy Franklin in The New Yorker:
I was puzzled by how a show that’s such a nothing even got made. It turns out that “Mental” is Fox’s first co-production with international partners in an effort to develop and package series for both the United States and the world market, and shoot them outside the U.S. in order to save money. “Mental” was filmed in Bogotá, in Fox’s Colombia studios. It has already been sold to three dozen other countries. Beyond the reduced cost (and “Mental” certainly does look cheap), it’s easy to see why this production method has appeal. Such a generic show, one with few complications, with no sense of place and a bland personality, can be slotted into just about any programming hole until something else comes along. Creatively speaking, this system has the advantage of allowing producers to develop a show to their own satisfaction, without the networks’ meddling. But no such blossoming took place with “Mental”; it’s an artificial flower that can be shipped all over the world without dying, because it was never alive in the first place.