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DVD Review


DVD cover

Psych
The Complete Fourth Season

 

Starring: James Roday, Dulé Hill, Timothy Omundson, Maggie Lawson, Kirsten Nelson and Corbin Bernsen
Universal Playback
RRP: £29.99
8283083
Certificate: 12
Available 18 July 2011


Set in Santa Barbara, Psych revolves around a young police consultant, Shawn Spencer, who solves crimes with his 'heightened observational skills'. These powers are so acute; the precinct detectives think he's psychic... at least that's what he lets them believe...

Psych is a comedy series that follows Shawn Spencer (James Roday) and his partner Burton "Gus" Guster (Dulé Hill) who run a psychic detective agency and regularly help the local police department to solve mysterious crimes. In reality Spencer is a fraud - he's not psychic at all, he's just got heightened observational skills. Spencer and Gus normally work along side Carlton "Lassie" Lassiter (Timothy Omundson) the local head detective and Juliet "Jules" O'Hara (Maggie Lawson) who is the junior detective.

More often than not Shawn begrudgingly has to see his dad (Corbin Bernsen) for advice. His dad is a retired police officer, who spent years fine tuning Shawn's observational skills, and their relationship is a little rocky.

Most episodes start with a flashback to the '80s when Spencer and Gus where young boys. This flashback helps set up something of a back story for the rest of the episode.

The fourth season of Psych consists of 16 episodes. Highlights in this collection include:

High Noon-ish: Lassiter has a job for Shawn and Gus. He drives them to a Wild West tourist attraction called Old Sonora where the owner, and sheriff, is convinced otherworldly goings on are occurring. Malevolent forces seem to be causing accidents at the park and if Shawn and Gus can't find out what is happening the attraction will have to close.

The Devil's in the Details... and the Upstairs Bedroom: Psych pays homage to The Exorcist. Ray Wise plays Father Westley, a priest who believes that a recent suicide at the local university may have been the work of demonic possession. Shawn and Gus are called in to uncover the truth before anther victim is claimed by the supposed demon.

Bollywood Homicide: And the Psychs are called in to investigate a man called Raj (Heroes's Sendhil Ramamurthy) who believes he is killing his partners due to a 'love curse'.

Let's Get Hairy: Shawn and Gus's new case sees them watching a man who claims to be a werewolf - for everyone's protection he hires the duo to watch him and make sure he can't harm anyone. But Shawn doesn't take the case seriously and when the man escapes the next day there is a dead body that appears to have been mauled by a wolf. This episode also features Thomas F. Wilson (Back to the Future's Biff).

Thrill Seekers and Hell-Raisers: Gus admits that he has a secret girlfriend and, knowing Gus's bad decision making when it comes to women, Shawn decides to make sure his friend isn't going out with a weirdo. She seems great, that is until they invite themselves onto one of her weekend breaks - she's an extreme sport fanatic and Gus and Shawn end up joining them on a white water rafting trip. But when one of the party falls off the raft, and their body is found further down river, Gus and Shawn have to find out if foul play was involved.

A Very Juliet Episode: Seven years previously Juliet and her then boyfriend parted ways, but agreed that exactly seven years later they would meet and if they were both still single they would go out on another date. When he fails to show Juliet discovers that it's because he died several years previously. Or did he...? Arnold Vosloo (The Mummy; Darkman) makes an appearance in this episode.

The Head, the Tail, the Whole Damn Episode: This is Psych's homage to Jaws. When a body washes up on shore Lassiter, fed up with Shawn grabbing the headlines, decides that he's going to report to the press that the dead man was murdered. His evidence? He believes one of the bite marks is actually a knife wound. Laughed at by the press, Lassiter takes a back seat while Shawn and Gus try and find out what really happened.

Mr. Yin Presents...: This is the follow up episode to season three's An Evening with Mr. Yang. We discover that Mr. Yang (The Breakfast Club's Ally Sheedy) had an accomplice, and it seems like they are carrying on where Mr. Yang left off. This episode is packed with numerous nods to Hitchcock movies.

Other notable guests stars include Bruce Davison, Miguel Ferrer, Robert Patrick Jeri Ryan and Tony Todd.

Extras include audio commentaries on several episodes; Video Commentaries (with the writers of that episode) for the majority of episodes; Deleted Scenes for almost every episode; Gag Reel (5 min, 54 sec); 2 x Psychouts (both 30 sec long); and Montages (7 min, 34 sec collection of clips with a linking theme - including the cast saying "what"; Gus's fake names; and Gus and Shawn's fist bumps).

So, another cracking entertaining season that's well worth adding to your collection.

9

Darren Rea

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