Tag Archives: Psych

Ranking the Shows That I watch: 2012 edition: The Outcasts, Part 2

25 Jan

This is my ranking of shows that I watched in 2012 – for the rules, see the intro;  so far we’re discussing shows that made my last list but not this one.

Here are some more shows that made last year’s list that didn’t make the cut this year.

Royal Pains

What a royal pain

2011 Rank:  30

And so the USA exodus continues.  Royal Pains isn’t bad.  It just isn’t particularly good either.  It’s probably not a show one would expect me to watch, unless they knew about my aforementioned USA mini-obsession.  I really have so little new information about the show; I watched with my friend, and when we lost our momentum, we both kind of stopped, and neither of us were too bent out of shape about it.  Every episode, main character doctor Hank Lawson solves a patient’s case, while other gradual progress is made on serial plotlines.  Henry Winkler plays his and his brother’s dad which is kind of cool.  Royal Pains is right out of the USA playbook, better than Fairly Legal, and probably better than several more USA shows, but worse than a couple others.  I bear it no ill will, but don’t watch it.

True Blood

Delicious

2011 Rank:  29

Here’s my long view take on True Blood.  I enjoyed the first season more than I thought I would.  I really liked the second season, which I thought was really focused and well plotted; there were two major storylines, and they were both resolved in the last few episodes, one before the other, allowing the characters from the second storyline to join the first just in time for the climax.  The third season then went away from that, giving nearly every character their own plotline, some severely weaker than others and completely unnecessary, and strangely had its climax less than 2/3 through the season, after which the villain, the Vampire King of Mississippi, one of the season’s strong points, sort of collapsed.  I barely started the fourth season, before I was done with it. True Blood has several problems, but scope is the biggest; it expanded too far and basically there was no reining it back in.  I enjoy hearing people tell me the plots because they sound so ridiculous, but I’m done watching it.  There’s a careful line between stupid trashy fun, and stupid trashy, well, trash, and this gradually shifted from the former to the latter.

How I Met Your Mother

How I Met Your Mother

2011 Rank: 27

Here’s a show that a lot of people like better than me, because it pushes a lot of my particular buttons.  I hate the narration, I hate the incredibly on the nose messaging and oddly old school moralism that I think is wisely absent from most modern comedies.  I do think the actors work very well together as a group, and I think that the funny parts, particularly provided by Barney and Marshall have been very solid, and that kept me watching for years, even as there were parts of the show that seriously bothered me.  So, I kept on, after I finished all my other shows, watching How I Met Your Mother dutifully, though ambivalently, until Season 7 episode “Symphony of Illumination,” in which the gimmick is that instead of regular narrator Ted telling the story to his kids, this time it’s Robin telling the story to her kids.  Only, it turns out that she can’t have kids, and instead she’s telling it to her fictional kids in her mind.  How I Met Your Mother has done gimmicks well in the past, but I just hated, hated this episode and it gave me the impetus to put down the show altogether.

Psych

Shawn and Gus

2011:  26

Almost out of USA shows, I swear.  Psych is actually the one I currently like the best, and still have plans on watching more of it.  Unlike most of the other USA shows, which are light hearted dramadies, Psych is much more explicitly a comedy.  Because it’s focus is on being funny and lighter, it’s much less of a issue to have generic procedural murders every episode without almost any serial element.  However, the lack of serial element is also what causes me to keep putting it behind watching other shows with longer arcs.  Still, Psych is an easy show to watch; it’s refreshing and enjoyable which makes it a great show to watch when tired, and I mean that as a compliment.  It’s like bathroom magazine reading; it’s hardly essential viewing, but it’s a great way to fill in some time, and I would rank this the highest of the USA shows if I actually watched it regularly.  Still I don’t, which I suppose says something about the show as well.

Tags: , , , ,

Ranking the Shows That I Watch – 26: Psych

1 Sep

Psych is the spiritual heir to Monk in the USA family that seems to be coming up a lot early on the list.  What makes Psych work is chemistry between leads James Roday as Shawn, the faux psychic detective who assists the Santa Barbara police department in solving homicides, and Dule Hill as Gus, his life long best friend and more conservative and skeptical partner, who plays a comedic Scully to Roday’s comedic Mulder.

We’ve been comparing USA shows, but forget spiritual heir – an episode of Psych operates almost exactly, plotwise, as an episode of Monk.  Somebody dies, then the tottering/incompetent/helpless police force can’t figure out who the culprit is, which forces them to call on outside help –  a consultant whose prodigal observational powers and ability to see insanely complicated Agatha Christie-esque plots help solve the crime, often leading to a heated confession from the suspect, explaining exactly how and/or why the crime was committed, much to the dismay/shock of the police, who can’t believe they couldn’t figure out what the consultant did.

The difference is in the snark level, which is significantly higher in Psych, and Psych’s emphasis on pop culture references.  Commercials for Psych include a meta-commentary about how Shawn is a real-life version of The Mentalist, and a performance of Hall & Oates’ “Private Eyes” by the main characters all dressed up in 1980s costumes.  Not an episode goes by without back and forth zinger references between Shawn and Gus, often at the expense of the other characters on the show (or each other) and often coming at the most inopportune times.  Some episodes take on specific styles (or particular movie or TV homages), such as a Twin Peaks-like episode and a Fast and the Furious streetracing episode, among many others.

Sometimes it seems like the show should be a half hour, and it’s a little bit silly in a way that most modern television shows aren’t, though that’s not necessarily a bad thing, being just about the only one.  Even though it’s easy to watch, it’s not as easy to marathon, as too much too soon it can feel repetitive, because even though each murder is a result of some different cockamamie scheme, the process gets to feel really similar.  As long as not watching them back-to-back-to-back though, you can avoid this feeling well enough, and the similar process becomes a comfort – you know what you’re getting, and it’s pretty good – rather than a burden.

Why it’s this high:  Much like Entourage, Psych is easy and fun to watch, and there’s something to be said for that – it’s tv I can sit back and relax and enjoy

Why it’s not higher:  The USA low-ceiling formula continues to have this problem – most episodes are solid, but very few make for all-time memorable television

Best episode of the most recent season:  “Viagra Falls” – guest stars William Devane and Carl Weathers play a proto-Shawn and Gus from the previous generation, crotchety old detectives with their own unique methods and chemistry, who come out of retirement to compete with Shawn and Gus to solve the murder of their old police chief.

Tags: , ,