Your Worst Inhibitions Tend to PSYCH You Out in the End

One day and counting! TOMORROW 10:00 p.m., 9:00 CST, Psych, Season 4, begins. I'll make these short and sweet -- my Top 10 reasons Psych is my favorite TV show:


10) Great episode names: Granted this isn't a real reason to watch the show, but if you have the DVDs and see the episode names, sort of like Seinfeld, you can relate to them by name because they stick out --

Tuesday the 17th
Black and Tan: A Crime of Fashion
Gus Walks into a Bank
There's Something about Mira
Shawn (and Gus) of the Dead
Spellingg Bee
Scary Sherry: Bianca's Toast

Because of this familiarity, they touch a little closer to home when you're laughing about them with friends.

9) Corbin Bernsen works as Shawn's dad. The obsessive cop who trained his son to be hyper-observant and let Shawn live with all his misconceptions of his parents' divorce so not to soil his thoughts of his mother - this has led to a rocky yet touching relationship between the pair that grows as the serial comedy goes along. A great side story.

8) Rewatchability of the episodes. I've got all three seasons on DVD, and there's no episode I wouldn't watch and laugh at a second, third, and fourth time.

7) The scenes where Shawn and Gus run away chicken. About two or three times each season, something happens that scares the pants off of our two heroes, and they just take off running. Those scenes are so laugh out loud funny, I almost wish there were more. But that would spoil it and make them predictable. It's great how it is.

6) Maggie Lawson as Juliet O'Hara - She wasn't in the pilot episode, but bringing her on was a stroke of genius. She's cute, perky, just believable enough in a cop role, and perfect for Shawn's love interest.

5) And since I've brought up Jules, the new twist that brought Rachael Leigh Cook in as Shawn's old flame, Abigail - the one that got away in high school - has made for a really good love triangle. I hope the show continues this for a little while. The sub-plot of Shawn and Jules attraction has been well played, and this little addition makes a nice turn. We'll see how it goes, but I'm looking forward to it.

4) The show doesn't take itself too seriously. This is pretty much true of all the USA shows, and that's probably a reason I like nearly every show. Monk's my least favorite, but it started in the right vein of not trying to be a hard-boiled cop show. Some of the characters are caricatures (like Lassie in Psych), but eventually they show human sides. Burn Notice and Royal Pains also do a very good job of this, and they're even more serious shows. I think In Plain Sight is the one that takes itself the most seriously, and it doesn't totally, but because of that, I think it suffers. Psych doesn't at all. It's not supposed to be reality, but you can suspend your belief because it works well enough as a dramedy and the fringe benefits are fantastic.

3) My kids love it. Now, not everything in every episode is kid-friendly, and sometimes I have to pause the DVD episodes and fast forward because of some innuendoes or a little too much kissing or spending the night. However, most episodes are pretty family-friendly, at least for a watcher like me.

2) All the 80s and pop culture references. The show is so loaded with them, it's hard to pick any out without just overflowing. The new commercial where the lady asks Shawn if he believes in Karma is a perfect example. Shawn's witty reply: "Of course, I do. I'm a Karma Chameleon." And Gus chips in with, "We come and go." I think my favorite might have been in Tuesday the 17th, which was an excellent spoof on the horror movies in the Friday the 13th genre, where Shawn, who was jealous of Gus' relationship as a kid with Joey Cunningham and now they're grown, states, "My least favorite tag team of all team." And Clive, a camp counselor, retorts, "Really, with the Iron Shiek and Nikolai Volkov on the table." (Those were pro wrestler villians, if you didn't know.) Not missing a beat, Shawn remarks, "You came up with that reference? Wow!" It's chalk full of these sorts of references, and they.are.hilarious.

1) The relationship, repoire, and banter between Shawn and Gus. I haven't seen better chemistry between two actors in any show... ever. They are hilarious together, touching sometimes, meaningful at others, you know they love each other as friends, and they work together on their cases so well. These are the roles James Roday and Dule' Hill will be remembered for forever. And that's gonna be a GREAT legacy for the two of them.

Psych is awesome!!! I love it! Watch it tomorrow! Is there anything else I can say?