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Editor’s Note: Psych is seen in the Philippines on the
cable channel C/S courtesy of Solar Entertainment.
FORGET
forensics: Collecting clues and catching crooks should
be a blast, not a bore.
“You get
so overloaded on the microscope, and that’s not much
fun” said Steve Franks, who dreamed up USA Network’s
Psych to prove that solving prime-time crimes can be
a romp rather than a rehash of grim reality.
Psych,
which began its second season on July 13, features a
witty sleuth who uncovers the truth without relying on
DNA—much like Monk, Tony Shalhoub’s eclectic but
quirkily successful detective.
“What
Monk does so well is start with an impossible
crime—and he solves it,” said Franks, a devotee of
lighter detective fare such as Magnum, PI,
Columbo and Moonlighting. “We try to do a
cool crime—the police photographer did it, or murder at
a competitive eating competition—with a fun hook. Then
we make it a legitimate mystery and lay out these
clues.”
Psych’s
premise is built on a pretense: Shawn Spencer (James
Roday) is a sharply observant slacker, drilled since
childhood by his police officer father (Corbin Bernsen)
to absorb everything about his surroundings. Now he’s
got a knack for noticing key details often overlooked by
police investigators: a stain, an out-of-place photo, a
piece of jewelry, a tire track. To explain his prowess,
Shawn tells people, “I’m a psychic.”
And
almost everyone believes him, including detectives on
the Santa Barbara police force, who ask for his help on
baffling cases. With creative bluffs—pretending to
channel a cat that witnessed a murder, posing as a
planetarium employee—and coincidental luck, Shawn keeps
up the ruse. Viewers can follow the trail of clues, too:
When Shawn zeroes in on an object, it lights up.
“This is
a guy who makes stuff up as he goes along, so I can sort
of organically justify doing a lot of ad-libbing,” said
Roday, whose character parlayed a single successful case
into a detective agency complete with a beachfront
office.
“He is
Peter Pan, this puckish dude who’s going to try to stay
a kid as long as possible,” Roday said of his character.
“The challenge is, how do you keep an adult who acts
like a child interesting and likable?”
Glimpses
of the youthful Shawn and his childhood best friend, Gus
(Dulé Hill), now his crime-solving partner, are seen in
flashbacks that open each episode. The vignettes,
whether a school field trip to the zoo or a backyard
game of Battleship, drop hints of what’s ahead. The show
also includes nods to popular culture: Last week’s
episode centered on a Simon Cowell-like talent show
judge under siege from an unknown assailant. To protect
him, Shawn and Gus go undercover as aspiring, but
dreadful, singers.
“We’re
living out a fantasy, two guys who have no training as
detectives, working as detectives,” Hill said. His
character is actually in pharmaceutical sales—“Gus is
putting in the minimum of time just to keep his health
insurance”—and he tries to be the voice of reason for
his pseudo-psychic business partner. But Gus is finally
starting to loosen up and enjoy the ride.
“We go
to racetracks and spelling bees and look for dinosaurs,”
Hill said. “If the cases weren’t so much fun, we
wouldn’t keep doing this.”
Show
creator Franks, who wrote and performed Psych’s
theme song with his rock band, Friendly Indians, said
the fun that infuses the on-air product is evident
behind the scenes, too. That fun, he said, is key to the
production’s success.
Roday,
who points to the strange but popular
Twin
Peaks
as his favorite TV show growing up, said Psych
tips its hat to police procedural shows.
“But at
the same time,” he said, “isn’t it ridiculous that there
are so many of them, and they all solve crimes the same
way? We don’t take ourselves so seriously.”
Maggie
Lawson, whose Detective Juliet O’Hara is always eager to
help Shawn along with his “visions,” likened the series
to Moonlighting, the banter-filled 1980s
detective comedy.
“It
encapsulates a lot of different worlds and there is
great chemistry, “said Lawson, who portrayed Nancy Drew
in a 2002 TV movie. “It’s kind of nice to do a show that
is serious and mysterious and silly all at the same
time.” |
