What I’m Watching: Psych

Psych: Season 5, Episode 12 “Dual Spires” (B)

This show is nothing if not ambitious. This is hardly the first parody episode that this show has attempted (and pulled off decently), but I’m happy to say that it’s the first one which really had personal resonance for me since I’ve seen, though never finished, the classic “Twin Peaks” series. It was fun to recognize Sheryl Lee (a.k.a. Laura Palmer) as the doctor, Sherilyn Fenn (Audrey Horne) as the librarian, and Dana Ashbrook (Bobby) as the father, despite that none of them are actually terribly good actors. Seeing Ashbrook with gray hair was particularly jarring since, having been two at the time of its premiere, I watched the show only a few years ago rather than when it actually aired back in 1990. Ray Wise was also on hand for the second time as Shawn and Gus’ childhood priest, with an amusing joke about his hair being transformed thrown in. I haven’t watched the show recently enough to get all of the humor, but it was certainly entertaining. I did long to hear the actual music from the show, though I’m sure it wasn’t used due to copyright claims or something of the sort. This episode did, to its credit, work better than some of the standalone parody episodes (like “Scary Sherry” or “Tuesday the 17th.” Overall, the effort to create effective parody diminished a bit from the quality of the episode, making the storytelling quite thin. Nonetheless, it was fun, and I have to recognize Timothy Omundson for his incredible emulation of a sadly absent Kyle Maclachlan in his tasting of the token town beverage.