Episode 1
July 8 2006
The show starts showing a kid with his dad in a restaurant. The father quizes the kid about how many hats their are in the room. The kid does an amazing job of answering, impressing the waitress. The father says that it is simply adequate.
Flash forward a few years. The kid is Shawn Spencer and is now in his 20's and his hooking up with a waitress back in his apartment. They lean on the remote control, turning on the TV. A news program comes on about a robbery and Shawn, looking at the guy being interviewed and knows by his body language that he is the robber. Shawn picks up the phone, calls the tip line and lets them know. He then gets back to the girl in question.
The next day he walks into the police station to get his reward. Unfortunately, they police are not as impressed as he is. He was right, but they don't think that anyone could solve a crime like that by watching a TV news report when they couldn't figure it out when they were right there. He tried to blow them off, and mocks them a bit (which doesn't win him any fans) until they threaten to toss him into a cell and introduce him to bubba. Stuck between a rock and a hard place, he decides to play psychic. He impresses them a bit by using his intuition to let them know that 2 cops are sleeping together, one cop has a dead grandma that she sees psychics about, and a guy in the hall smashed his girlfriend's car and has glass from the car in his boot. They are not completely convinced, but believe him enough to get him out of jail.
On his way out, the 'interim' police chief stops him and asks to help with a kidnapping case. She doesn't quite believe him either, but is rather desperate. He decides that it would be fun, and agrees. He goes to pick up a friend, and heads over the the mansion of the kidnapped person (yep, the guy was loaded).
His friend Burton is a little worried that they will be caught in their scam...but Shawn assures him that the cops will never figure out that he is faking his psychic abilities...and that he is really just a very intuitive investigator. They poke around and ask some question...and Shawn hits on the missing guy's sister a bit, and of course ruffles some feathers before he leaves.
After a bit more investigating, he decides that the rich kid and his friend made up the whole kidnapping thing, and were hiding out at a cabin in a remote area. He of course drives out there and sees the rich guys dog driving around. Instead of calling the police and telling them to go out there, he decides to drive back to where the cops were eating lunch of fake a psychic vision. He manages to piss off one of the cops, but does get them to go along with him.
They go back to the cabin and find rich guy and his friend are dead. Not quite the outcome that Shawn was expecting. The police decided that it was a murder suicide. That they somehow had an argument and bam, they ended up dead. Shawn isn't buying it, but they don't really give him much of a choice. They pay him for his services and tell him to go on his way.
Shawn decides that giving up would not be a lot of fun...so he keeps digging. He manages to piss off a few more cops, has an argument with his dad (an ex cop) and even manages to accuse rich guys sister of the murder. He then finds that accusing a girl of killing her brother is a bad way to pick up a girl.
Finally he goes back to the rich guys mansion for some more investigating. After a bit of a discussion, he decides to accuse the rich guy of bumping off his son. He even tells the guy how it happened (it was an accident that just sort of snowballed). Of course this pisses the guy off...just a bit, and he gets himself tossed out of the mansion.
The police end up getting involved...but they are rather pissed that Shawn went back to the mansion after he was told that the case was closed. However, just when they were arresting Shawn, he had another 'psychic' moment and said that rich guy killed the son, and that the son's dog bit him on the wrist after the killing. The rich guy is defensive at first...but eventually confesses.
The episode ends with Shawn taking Burton to the office where he opened up a PI agency. He decided to do cases for the police, and take on some private cases as well. The agency name is "Psych."
WOW, this is quite a show. It mixes an interesting mystery, with comedy. I'd say that this show has a very good shot of really going the distance. Shawn is hilarious, and his friend Burton makes a great sidekick...always concerned by the fact that Shawn seems to be getting them in way over their heads.
I also like the dynamic between Shawn and his father. They clearly have issues...but there is a level of respect there, even if neither of them want to admit it.
It is also very interesting watching how Shawn's mind works. When he notices things, the camera zooms in on them...and there is an interesting lighting effect that helps draw the viewer's attention. My only complaint is at times they overdo to physical comedy when it comes to his fake psychic visions. Of course, comedies have a tendency to go overboard at times, so this isn't really a huge deal.
I'll be updating this with a few more observations once I've let the show settle a bit...and maybe watch it again, but overall I was very impressed.