Why We Like Psych

Psych is the longest running original program on the USA Network - ok maybe that isn't saying too much as we can't really remember too many other USA Network shows at all. But that's not the point - the show has been running for 7 seasons and thanks to Netflix, it is reaching a much larger audience than it otherwise might and we just love it. And BTW - Season 7 will launch in February of 2013.

So how did we find out about Psych and start watching it? Well, it's really weird - it's like the app developers at Netflix hooked up with those spooky psychics at what's left of PeoplePC.com and tapped right into our brains. For more than a year, Psych was just sitting there in our recommended queue (btw - does anyone else know why queue is spelled like that?) - staring at us but we refused to watch. It looked weird and not interesting. What we didn't know then was that Psych is the funniest show on television today. Hats off (for those of you who wear hats - although we're probably talking baseball caps here) to show creator Steve Franks for assembling an unbelievable cast and some really great writers and ultimately it is the writing and the jokes that make this show so interesting.

The Mentalist gone Mental?

So why do we like Netflix so much? Here's our really long list of reasons; Psych...

• Has the best popular culture references from the 1980's of any television show or movie ever produced.
• Is filled with more cameos from stars from the 1980's of any show ever produced.
• Has the best chase scenes featuring a Toyota Yaris or Echo (referred to as the Blueberry) ever filmed.
• Is the only show we know that has tackled the Breakfast Club from every possible angle - including use of cameos and even mocking the lead singer of Tears for Fears (during a cameo).
• Includes the best vampire imitations of Lestat and Blackula ever (and no he wasn't Count Chocula).
• Has resurrected the career of Corbin Bersen (80's star from LA Law) and it turns out he's pretty funny.
• Features the best use of establishing shots to make you forget the show is actually being filmed in Vancouver.
• Is the best buddy show ever perhaps - short of Abbott and Costello - except that there's no straight man in Psych (btw that's a comedy term - nothing to do with sex).
• Gave Danny Glover a job even though he looks like he's a 100 now (and William Devane and Action Jackson/Apollo Creed too). 
• Built a show around stealing a Stars Wars action figure (of Darth Vader). 
• Manages to fit in lot's of offensive humor without seeming offensive. 
• Is able to spoof both the classic detective dramas as well as most other genres of TV show.
• Created the best homage to the Bourne Identity ever - well not so much an homage but they did have Matt Damon's girlfriend in the episode.
• Has the best flashbacks to childhood memories and the ability to link those to the current day action. 
• Has the best Coroner character in the history of TV (sorry Quincy - rest in peace). And the homage to the Hangover was the Coroner's best episode. 
• Invented the largest quantity of goofy sidekick nicknames - ever (see the 2nd clip below). 
• Has the best use of the actor who played Batmanuel since he appeared in the Tick (it's a long story we'll tell you about that in another post).
• Filmed the best TJ Hooker parody ever.
• Was able to use William Shatner in an episode and not let the guy make a huge ass out of himself (quite the accomplishment).
• Has the Best show theme written by the same guy who created the show. 
• Featured one of the best episode as comic book plots ever - with "Tap Man" and "the Catch."
• Has the best show tag line - "To Predict and Serve."
• Sports the best use of Val Kilmer has gotten really big lately jokes.
• Developed the best multiple Christmas homage / ripoff of It's a Wonderful life, A Christmas Carol and Bad Santa (this includes the best dwarf cameo ever).
• Filmed the best Cuckoo's Nest sort of homage ever...
• Had the best episode title ever "Viagra Falls."

Psych has a thing for Pineapples - we like that too

In short Psych is perhaps the funniest, most creative show we've seen in years and even more remarkably - it has managed not to get cancelled. The premise of the show is that Shawn Spencer having been trained in the ways of police-work as a child by his semi-psychotic detective father and has the ability to solve crimes. However, since he hasn't gone to the Police Academy (although that happens later in an episode with the Karate Kid Ralph Machio) he resorts to pretending he has psychic abilities and then ropes in his best friend Gus to be his partner in a psychic private detective agency called - Psych.

The many identities of Gus (Dule Hill)

Those of you who are fans of Mr. Aaron Sorkin may remember Dule from the West Wing. The two main characters, Dule and James Roday, have an incredible chemistry and the rest of the cast is pretty good too. Here are some of our favorite lines / quotes from  Psych:

• Remember, Dad, you treat a woman like a person, then a princess, then a goddess, then a person again. (Shawn)

• I can't spend the night in the museum. I don't have my toothbrush, I don't have my multi-vitamins, and oh yeah, I don't want my soul suffering eternal damnation for disrupting the sleep of an Egyptian canal digger. (Gus)

• My pilot's license? It's out back in the Cessna. Or perhaps you're referring to my license to kill? Revoked. Problems at the Kazakhstan border. I'd give you the details, but then I'd have to kill you... which I can't do because my license to kill has been revoked.  (Shawn)

• There are some things about women that only me and NBC anchor Brian Williams know. (Shawn)

• What more do you need? I told you she's blonde, and pale, and beautiful and perfect. So get me a name and get me an address and get me some aspirin! (Carrlton)

• I'd say that's pretty ridiculous. Not as ridiculous as Denise Richards playing a nuclear physicist named Christmas Jones in a Bond movie, but still. (Shawn)

• Great. Now you've gotten me kicked out of a funeral. Just add it to the list. Kicked out of Petsmart, kicked out of Santa's Village, kicked out of the Salvation Army (Gus)

• Please tell me you're not one of those courtroom groupies that bounces from trial to trial…wait a second, was that you at the Michael Jackson hearing with the sequined glove and the shirt that said "Please free the man in the mirror"? (Shawn)

• Gus, don't be a melted chocolate chip cookie. (Shawn)

Don't hate us because we're beautiful vampires

• Gus: Wait a second! This is my Airwolf windbreaker! I've been looking for this for like five years now! Why did you take this? I never even saw you wear it. 
• Shawn: Of course I didn't wear it. I took it so you wouldn't. Don't put it on. Gus, nobody had an Airwolf jacket except Jan-Michael Vincent!

• Shawn: I can play six degrees of dinosaur with you right now... You've never been in a movie with Kevin Bacon or a dilophosaurus, have you?
• Gus: How about you play six degrees of kiss my ass?
• Shawn: First of all, that sounds like a totally disturbing game.

Copyright 2012 - Raving Reviews - All Rights Reserved

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Photographing Fairies

Well, we really tried to come up with a better post title, but let's face it, this movie title simply can't be beaten. The movie we're talking about is called - yes - Photographing Fairies. And we found it on Netflix because just about the only movies they've got left in their library are obscure pics like this one from 1997. It stars a guy who seems to have a permanent sneer on his face (he could have been the British Elvis?) Toby Stephens. You might remember him from his villainous roles in the Bond flick, Die Another Day. He played the Korean guy who somehow turned himself into an Aryan supermodel. But enough about that. Hey speaking of Elvis, if you like great pizza you'll have to stop at the Velvet Elvis - located in the middle of nowhere Arizona - but we digress, back to the movie.

Here's the ultimate spoiler - the last scene of the movie where Toby meets his inner Fairy

One thing we can't fault this movie for is that it is indeed a story about a guy who photographs - yep you guessed it - fairies - and no this isn't about Gay Marriage. We're talking, honest God, winged mini-people flitting around in the English countryside just after World War 1. So anyway, this guy (the main character, we forgot his name because the fairies were more interesting) seems predisposed to pursuing strange hobbies after a career of photographing dead soldiers and a really bad vacation where he let his girlfriend fall into a bottomless crevasse somewhere at the top of Alps (we think we should have taken her to Florida instead).

At first he is skeptical, but then he convinced through a combination of photographic analysis and hallucinogenic drugs. The truth is out there - trust no one - he wants to believe, in fairies - Toby is the Fox Mulder of Fairies. But what are these little critters? Well, their FX budget seemed pretty limited - for example WWI ended being one scene with 4 dead guys and a bomb that dropped nearby. Anyway they didn't seem to have much more money for their computer graphics, so the winged tinker-bells looked a little bit like white smurfs or perhaps flying mini-zombies. We also get to meet Sir Aurthur Conan Doyle (of Sherlock Homes fame) as he seems to be Toby's go to expert on all things Fairy.

We have a theory about those wacky fairies - they're Extraterrestrials !

Ultimately though we learn very little about who or what these fairies really are from this movie and perhaps most disappointing of all, we don't even get to see any decent photographs of them. Right when we think we might get some pictures, Ben Kingsley, who sports a curly wig and the strangest workout clothes we've ever seen smashes up all the equipment before accidentally impaling himself on a tripod (luckily Toby insured all of the cameras). We're left with a tantalizing clue as something leaves Ben's mouth at the moment of his death, but it simply isn't clear whether its a Fairy escaping or terminally bad breath. Although they seem to be suggesting that the fairies are us - a disturbing conclusion considering the obvious innuendo we've been toying with throughout the post, we prefer our theory about British - ahem - all fairies.

The fairies of legend and the fairies at the heart of this relatively anemic plot are in fact an a capella group of extraterrestrials who look remarkably like Japanese teenage girls. Don't believe us, see the proof for yourself...

Actual Fairies captured in slow motion so we can see what they really look like

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Dead Like Me Comes Alive

Sometimes we may sound overly critical but we do in fact have a great number of things that we actually enjoy. We've decided to focus the next few posts on some of our favorite TV series - some of which we discovered years after they left the air through Netflix.

Dead Like Me is an example of one of our recent finds. We completely missed the series while it was on Showtime (we were either too busy at the time to watch much television or in a Cable Rejection phase) but we found it this year while browsing through Netflix. It turns out the show's creator Bryan Fuller, had also developed one of our all time favorite shows "Pushing Daisies." He had also worked on Star Trek Voyager. That's some resume.

It also seems somehow appropriate to review a show called Dead Like Me which features the lives of Grim Reapers on the eve of the Apocalypse.

The Season 1 Trailer of "Dead Like Me"

The premise of the show is unusual - it also somewhat presages what you'll see if you decide to watch Pushing Daisies. The main character dies in the pilot episode but that's OK because she doesn't really go anywhere - death is the beginning of her story. Georgia, the main character rediscovers life through her new role as a grim reaper and through a proxy life she establishes as an undead girl trying to make ends meet. Needless to say, the premise alone was intriguing - but what really grabbed us was character development and the offbeat humor present in most of the episodes.

The show also sports one of the most original opening credits sequence and musical score that we've ever experienced - the music by the way was composed by Stewart Copeland - former member of the Police.

How could anyone resist this title sequence?

Each of the characters in the show represent seemingly real people - albeit somewhat quirky but real. Oddly enough the least interesting character is Georgia but that's because she's acting as a bit of foil or straight man through most of the series while observing the world around her. Mandy Patinkin plays a bit of a foil himself but often devolves into his own quirky directions on many occasions. The cast assembled for the show is very talented with standout performances coming from Mandy, from Callum Blue, from Laura Harris and from all the actors portraying Georgia's family. Georgia's co-workers at her new found office career are pretty fascinating as well - it's a large ensemble effort.

Callum Blue launched his career on Dead Like Me

We suppose that the somewhat dark humor on the show may not be to everyone's tastes - or perhaps it may be an acquired taste. We do believe that most of you will enjoy it though. There is something altogether therapeutic in being able to laugh at death or the circumstances revolving it and of course we're seeing another way to view life as well in most of the plot-lines. We give Dead Like Me our highest rating and we weren't the only ones who thought so - fans of the show helped to bring most of the cast back for a movie version of the show in 2009. And if you check out the ratings on most of the movie review sites you'll see Dead Like Me coming close to the highest ratings possible.

Someone asked us a fairly interesting question the other day - they said "why do studios & TV networks always cancel the best shows after one or two seasons and then run the crap like Two & Half Men for decades?" That's a good question - perhaps we need grim reapers to help us weed out the wretched programming and make room for more shows like this.


Copyright 2011, Raving Reviews™

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