On Psych‘s first season DVD set, showrunner Steve Franks identifies star James Roday as the biggest Twin Peaks fan he knows in the commentary track for the pilot. It’s relevant, because one of the guest stars in the Psych pilot is Don S. Davis, who played Major Briggs on David Lynch’s quirky mystery show.This week, in recognition of Twin Peaks‘ twentieth anniversary and Roday’s fandom, Shawn and Gus finally head out to the Cinnamon Festival in “Dual Spires”, a small town with a strange cast of characters and some dark secrets. Featuring not one, not two, but seven former Twin Peaks cast members (six in their Psych debuts), the show has been one of the most heavily-promoted in Psych‘s history, and Roday has been doing a full-court press, doing dozens of interviews about “Dual Spires,” an episode he championed, co-wrote and says is the Psych episode he’s most proud of. Recently, the star spoke to ComicBook.com about the tribute show.[Note: The “Dual Spires” episode of Psych airs tonight at 10 p.m. on USA. The episode itself will be about seven minutes longer than the usual episode of Psych, and that time will come out of the back end, so be sure to set your DVRs to account for the extra time if you cannot watch the episode live. The extra seven minutes, including a final minute-thirty that Roday promises will be very memorable, will not air when the show goes into reruns.]The Cinnamon Festival is actually mentioned in the Pilot. Was there always an intention to set an episode there, or was that originally just a throwaway line?We knew we had it. We had tried to write stories in the past that were driven by Shawn and Gus going to a Cinnamon Festival somewhere, that never panned out—so then we needed a reason to get them to this tiny little town and it was fortuitous that we’d never used it. It just felt like the right time to drop it in.
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Yeah—it’s funny that you should mention your niche. I’ve noticed that it’s territory that Community is very comfortable walking in, too, and between the two of you, you’ve had almost all of The Breakfast Club on your shows.
Well, you can just—on the commentary tracks—claim that Estevez is the one running around in the Yin suit in these episodes.
Speaking of The Breakfast Club, I felt like the John Hughes episode was a real turning point in terms of the pop culture stuff. “Dual Spires” notwithstanding, because I’ve seen a lot of interviews already where you say this is your favoritePsych episode ever, what’s your favorite theme episode that you’ve done? A lot of those have been really strong and I know that a lot of them you’ve had a hand in writing or directing.
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At what point did it start to dawn on you guys that all of this was a strong point of the show? It seems like the floodgates have really opened since the John Hughes episode.
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In terms of the upcoming Twin Peaks episode, I understand that you asked for Michael Ontkean and for Madchen Amick and the two of them just couldn’t get the schedules to work. That said, there was a certain actor in the second season of Twin Peaks that could have brought a real—how do I say this?–Billy Zanian quality to Psych. Did you ever consider him?
Is this next upcoming season slated to be your last or is it just all you’re guaranteed?
In spite of some really stellar reviews, the only thing I heard people complaining about with last year’s finale was that it was so dark, and it lost a lot of the humor that you associate with Psych. Is that something that you have to factor in, particularly when you’re writing an episode?
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Well, working from home I am a great watcher of TV, and I can tell you that it’s pretty much just you and Community, and those are the only two shows I can think of on mainstream American television who are doing this kind of stuff.
Everyone knows you’re a great fan of The Mentalist, but other than that, what are you watching these days? Obviously most of the references on the show have to be ten or more years older in order to be iconic enough to be recognized.
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That’s alright. Speaking as a comic fan, The Walking Dead is the big thing of our year. Plus, I really just asked so you could giggle at my Mentalist joke. I remember when my wife had me pick up the DVD set, I watched the whole thing kind of going, “Isn’t this the general premise of Psych?” So when you had the episode where you called that out in an episode, I loved it.
So…Agent Cooper got clues from a bird in the first season of Twin Peaks, and on Psych you’ve been partners with a little boy cat, and got some clues from Ben the mouse. I was kind of wondering: What did happen to Ben after Mary died in last season’s finale? Are we going to see him in the third part of the Yin/Yang trilogy?
I was thinking that would be an elegant solution, since we’ve only been there—what, like once in the whole series?
Hey, like I said, it was in the back of my head, but you said it first. Now, you had said in an interview someplace else that there was a baseball episode coming up. I was wondering, then, if there would be any Corbin Bernsen-inspiredMajor League action going on there.
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think it’s much more in Shawn’s wheelhouse to squeal like a little girl with a skinned knee when he gets hit by the pitch. Henry is much more stoic and manly than Corbin was in Major League.
So that’s a season six episode that hasn’t been shot yet, or that’s coming down the pike later this year?
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peaking of—who is directing the “Dual Spires” episode? Is that one of yours or is one of the other directors taking that one?
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I actually had one, and someone recently borrowed it from me and it never came back! I tell you, this is really well-timed for me in that both Psych andTwin Peaks were shows that I recently sat down and just barrelled through the whole series in a short period of time, and so I’m a much bigger fan of both than I could ever have claimed to be two years ago.
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I think it’s interesting that you say that—as I said, it’s really you andCommunity who are doing the pop-culture stuff, but even Community is really just molding the pop culture stuff to fit into the tone of their show, where with the Hitchcock episode and from what I’ve seen of the Twin Peaks episode it appears as though you guys are going the other way and working out camera angles and cinematic styles and stuff to adapt to the content.
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Speaking for me, the most exciting part was that you had the Log Lady!
Do you know, for those of us with standard DVR instead of TiVO, whether it’s airing during the usual timeslot with fewer commercials or whether it’s going to run long and you’ll want to play with your DVR settings?
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