‘Psych’ continues its grass-roots effort in fifth season

The USA Network’s fan-favorite original series Psych begins its fifth season tomorrow night, and viewers are hungry to again watch the exploits of Shawn Spencer (James Roday), the fake psychic detective with the keen observational skills; his best friend Burton “Gus” Guster (Dule Hill); and the characters of the Santa Barbara Police Department they deal with regularly, such as the erascible Lassiter (Tim Omundson) and earnest Juliet (Maggie Lawson). As popular as the show has become, though, Psych creator Steve Franks still sees it as a grass-roots series. “We always feel like we’re trying to hand out fliers on the corner that say, ‘Watch our show!’ That’s the way we’ve sustained our audience for all these years and built in different areas,” says Franks, who also sings the catchy Psych theme song with his band, the Friendly Indians. I had the chance to talk with the creator on the eve of the season premiere, one he directed that has Shawn and Gus tussling with two rival Chinese Triad families in a mixture of The Karate Kid and Chinatown, as he’s also prepping for the Psych panel at Comic-Con in San Diego next week. Read below for what fans can look forward to this season and how last season’s finale will play out this year, and come back to the blog tomorrow for the second part of our interview.

Photos courtesy of USA Network

Full disclosure time: I just watched all four seasons back-to-back, and your theme song may be ingrained in my head forever.
I both apologize and say you’re welcome. [Laughs]

You can always tell a new season by when Juliet’s hair changes.
And then this year, she darkens it, so it’s the most different. Maggie always wants to go to full brown, and then the network freaks out. We always try to make everybody happy with that.

How does it feel starting a fifth season being a major show on a major network player?
It wasn’t until this year that it started to feel like a big number. We’ve been even getting a lot of people saying, “Hey, you’re the senior show there on USA Network,” and I’m like, “Oh my god, you’re right!” We’re still trying to make the show the best it can be at all times, and it doesn’t feel like the show is aging. It’s cool that in the fifth season it feels like we’re hitting our stride.

And you’re starting with a bang with the Chinese Triad episode.
I had so much fun doing that episode. In the offseason, we were supposed to do a 3D episode to start the season. I wrote an episode particularly for 3D, and that fell apart for a number of reasons, or got delayed. Who knows if we’ll ever do it. I knew I was directing the season premiere, and I’m like, Oh no, what am I going to do? I looked at the idea board and I’m like, “Well, I’ve always wanted to do [the Karate Kid/Chinatown episode].” There’s so much fun action and a lot of great character stuff. It’s really rich. I might sound just too excited by the process, but that’s the way I operate every day. This Chinatown thing, I don’t know if I can ever enjoy something as much as that.

Your homage episodes, like the Hitchcock one that ended last season, seem to be the best ones.
Hitchcock was great because it was already part of our Yin trilogy and it had a definitive look and feel. It felt like that was one we really had to dive into. When I pitched the kung fu episode, they’re like, “OK, the film isn’t going to be scratched up and people aren’t going to be talking out of sync…” We play the genre a little less, but it’s more about our guys’ reaction to the world.

What other episodes are you doing this season?
We’re doing what looks like a UFO abduction/Close Encounters-type thing. We’re doing a Fast and Furious-type episode with a ring of car thieves and street racers, which I just got the cut of. There are so many great laugh-out-loud moments in that one. We’re doing a tap dance episode second, where we get to see Dule Hill dance and Tim Omundson go along for the ride. It’s really a fun mix to have Lassiter and Gus work a case together. We’ve done a ‘70s thing before, but we’re bringing back a couple of cops, played by William Devane and Carl Weathers, who were Henry’s [Corbin Bernsen] superiors when he first became a detective. They come back in to help solve a case. The episode is like a traditional ’70s or ’80s cop show case. That’s one where the genre is lightly infused into the episode, but you get a flavor that this is something a little bit different. The big one is in the latter half of the season. We’re doing our Twin Peaks episode once and for all. We’ve been talking about it for years, and we’ve been watching episodes of Twin Peaks.

Last year’s season finale ended with the revelation of some kind of connection between a young Shawn and the creepy Mr. Yang (Ally Sheedy). Will that simmer or are you tackling that early on in the season?
It’s going to resonate, but it’s not going to be a driving force yet. The fact that the Yin episode was really traumatic for our cast, that’s going to play out with Juliet being on leave from the police department and Henry has now been brought into the fold as a reaction to Shawn’s behavior in the last few episodes. Emotionally, it’s resonating with our cops until Yin comes back to town, which is not going to be until the winter run. We’re not going to find out any answers, but Shawn’s way of dealing with it is just “Listen, I’m moving on. I’m not going to let this hold me back.” That’s the great thing about the finale of the trilogy: Shawn does not want to engage, but he’s sucked back into it. That’s one of the stories we’re breaking now and I’m really excited about it. It’s slated at this point to be the winter finale so you have to wait all the way until March or whenever till those air. All the questions will be answered.

James said that last year’s season finale was the Empire Strikes Back of the Yin trilogy. Will the next one be Return of the Jedi, with Ewoks?
[Laughs] We had to promise the network that in a trilogy, the middle part is the darkest chapter. That’s where the hero is in the most trouble. For me, Empire Strikes Back is clearly the superior of all the Star Wars films. I think we are going to avoid having furry little monkeys in the third one, but we’re going to try and make it a little lighter. A lot of times, the network gets cuts of these and they’re like, “What show is this?!” That’s the beauty of our show: We can have these great, silly Spanish telenovela episodes, yet we can turn around and have Shawn get shot by a guy because he’s mouthing off too much and have him use his skills and go toe-to-toe with a legitimate bad guy.

Curt Smith is coming on the show this season. Is he doing his own Tears for Fears version of the theme song?
Yes indeed he is. It’s one of the great things of this year. James actually met Curt and hung out with him. He is the biggest Tears for Fears fan that I know, so the two of us knew that to get to write that into the show would be spectacular. That’s another big wish fulfillment thing. The great thing is we haven’t shot Curt’s stuff yet, but we’re shooting some really funny stuff for him to do in the episode.

Will there be more covers of the theme than just Curt’s this season?
So far it’s just Curt’s, but we are considering mixing it up a little bit for Twin Peaks. That seems logical to go out and shoot two minutes of exteriors and just play a long ethereal version of the theme song, to get into the pace and tone of Twin Peaks.

Do you have a personal favorite of the variations that you’ve had before?
Oh my gosh, they’re all so great! For me, getting to go in and record it in Spanish was monumental. I took French in high school so I had absolutely no Spanish, which is a terrible decision when you live in California. Tim Micsko, who is overseeing our post-production, worked me over in a big way: “Get this syllable right! To the point where I will never ever forget how to sing that song in Spanish.” It was a long difficult day but ultimately rewarding. And I’m gifted with the ability to sing our theme song in Spanish at any time.

You’re taking Psych to Comic-Con next week. What’s in store for fans?
We have a special guest who will be there, a mini-performance at the end of our time, a gag reel and some footage. I had written a cast interview that goes completely awry and turns into a big violent fight scene. It turns out, they budgeted it at $60,000 to produce and we’d have to shut down production. We’re going to try and shoot it anyways and put it on the website at some point, but I don’t think it’s going to be available for Comic-Con. If we ever shoot it, it’ll be really, really hilarious.