Tonight’s season premiere of PSYCH was written by me & William Rabkin. We haven’t seen it yet. We hope it’s good. Let me know, because I’m at the Mystery Writers of America annual board meeting in New York and won’t see it until I get back on Monday.
I was debating whether I would watch tonight or not. Now that I know, I’ll be watching for sure. Review to follow.
Mark
That is actually one of my favorite new shows. I’ve been counting down its return. Very cool that you helped write the episode. I look forward to seeing it. 🙂
I just saw your episode. I’ve not been a regular viewer of Psych, but I may have to change that. I enjoyed it. Thanks for the heads up.
I’m a fan of Psych – great episode – liked the larger involvement of the father – a good counterpoint relationship. The dialogue was quick and clever.
Psych is one of my favorite new shows. I liked your episode. The dialog was good and the Shawn/Gus interaction was well done.
My only complaint is an unfixable one. I want all the characters to have lots of screen time (I missed the police involvement, but liked the greater father involvement), but that isn’t possible.
One technical question – Do you script the zoom focus in a piece of evidence that Shawn does or the decision to do that made later?
I hope to see more of your writing on Psych.
Either my view of the show has changed or I liked this better then some of the others. Great job.
I just feel bad for poor Zoe Sharp. Dead yet again.
Mark
John,
Yes, the zooms are scripted. They are referred to in the scripts as “Shawn-vision.”
Mark,
When did I kill Zoe before? Did I also off her in DM novel?
Lee
I thought this was a meatier story than most of the PSYCH episodes I’ve seen. I was impressed with how the first few minutes made the police captain so sympathetic that we cared about him for the rest of the show, despite his increasingly outrageous antics.
By the way, what’s with the big cat attacks? Wasn’t one of the deaths in MR. MONK GOES TO MEXICO also a mountain lion mauling?
I thought it was great! I saw your names in the credits and almost jumped out of my seat!
Mom’s sister recently passed away due to Alzheimer’s, so that’s a very dear subject in my family. Thank you for mentioning crossword puzzles/SuDoku in relation to Alzheimer’s. My siblings and I are trying to get Mom back into crosswords and Dad into SuDoku!
Thanks again to you and Mr. Rabkin for the wonderful episode! Looking forward to more PSYCH and MONK from you!
P.S. Danny: the Monk/MEXICO lion mauling case was faked by the Mexican Coroner to lure Adrian down, but that plan failed. Also, they always said: “Wild lion”, but not “Mountain lion.”
Tami:
Thanks. I did know the facts behind the “attack” on the Monk ep. But even though it aired nearly four years ago, I just saw it recently (on DVD), and I’m sure some readers haven’t seen it. I therefore felt circumspection concerning the plot would be considerate. YMMV.
Oops, Danny (and Lee!): My bad. I should’ve left it at “they said Wild not Mountain Lion”…
I knew I recognized the name Zoe Sharp. I thought she was a victim in something else you’d written, but maybe not. I know I’ve heard that name before in something you’ve done, however.
Mark
That was you, huh? Cool. I liked the episode, and I thought the Zoe Sharp reference was just coincidence.
Great episode. It’s really great that your involved in PSYCH as well as MONK. My friends Dad also has some memory loss, and I really liked the way you handled this. Kurtwood Smith is a terrific actor and did a wonderful job in the role of the father. I hope you and Bill get to write more episodes of PSYCH. Plus maybe if the tie-in novels if there are any!
I liked the episode a lot, one of the better ones in the series so far. I was caught off-guard by the final twist in the murder cases and I think it could have been obvious in less capable hands.
It’s probably more a production thing than dealing with the script, but I don’t think we as the audience were dealt a fair hand with the bird house security cam. That could’ve used one of Shawn’s highlight auras for our benefit.
Kurtwood Smith really infused the part you wrote with a great balancing act between frailty and a tenuous grasp on vitality. He was certainly not a person one would expect to be suffering from Alzheimer’s and so perhaps his portrayal might have alerted many in the audience that anybody could fall victim to it.
His casting, and knowing that you wrote it, made me wonder if you had any other actor in mind when you and your partner were working on the script? If so, I’m glad things turned out as they did…
Loved it.
Psych is a favorite of mine.
I’ve watched every episode of Psych and I thought the Gus character was pared down. I watch the show solely for Gus. I was disappointed slightly by his interaction, even though there were some truly funny moments (Dule Hill makes the best faces). However, I liked Shawn a lot more in this episode (when I normally don’t like him) and I liked that you showed other reasons why Shawn doesn’t get along with his dad. Last season, his dad was kind of gruff and militaristic, but there wasn’t much that would warrant Shawn’s extreme dislike of him. But a father not giving his son the benefit of the doubt… that can be scarring. My favourite line was the “little i’s” line. I’m glad you didn’t shawn vision the birdhouse camera. I saw it in the birdhouse, but I would have thought, “oh, great!” if EVERY clue was given to us. Yes, I know it’s not about the mystery, but I still like solving the crimes too. And I loved the guy from That 70s Show. I think, despite what I disliked, that this was the best storyline that Psych has had so far.