An interesting thing about "Life," they knew they were going to be cancelled, so they wrapped up the continuing storyline in the last episode.
'Life' was a good show and they ended it properly. I watched both seasons on Netflix to fill the blanks and the producers/director letting the audience know 'where the characters are' was a nice touch - as opposed to the normal 'Hey, what happened to program X'?
I checked out of 'Mentalist' when the Patrick character ignored Grigsby's head wound to enter a house where Red John was supposed to be.