Welcome news for fans of Psychis a new trailer (below) for the second sequel to a sequel, Psych 3: This is Gus. It looks even more like the series than last year’s fun drama we first discussed here at borg, Psych 2: Lassie Come Home (the first new original movie to premiere on NBC’s Peacock streaming service), and Psych 3will also premiere on Peacock–in a few weeks. The movie, the third of six sequels that creator/showrunner Steve Franks said he plans to make, switches focus from Timothy Omundson′s character Lassiter aka Lassie to Dulé Hill′s Burton Guster, aka Ovaltine Jenkins aka Hollabackatcha aka Domo Arigato, etc., whose new wife has some secrets for Team Psych to uncover. Best of all, the movie is less than a month away. Who doesn’t need a good laugh? Everyone is back: James Roday, Dulé Hill, Maggie Lawson, Kirsten Nelson, Kurt Fuller, and Corbin Bernsen, and, of course, Tears for Fears′ own Curt Smith.
Welcome news for fans of Psychis a new trailer (below) for the second movie sequel in what is expected to be a series of movies we first discussed here at borg a whole strange month ago. The movie has the quite apt and humorous title, Psych 2: Lassie Come Home, and it’s expected to arrive with the general release of the free Peacock streaming service app coming your way on or shortly after July 15 (Peacock will also have a pay “premium content” version). The movie, the second of six sequels that creator/showrunner Steve Franks said he plans to make, will focus on Timothy Omundson′s character Lassiter aka Lassie. Omundson suffered a stroke in 2017 (watch a great interview with him below) and the story will in part mirror his real-life comeback.
If you’re looking for a show to pep up your day as you go about all your activities, we have the perfect series with a good level of humor, smart writing, and some great actors. It’s Psych. Play it all day, every day in your house, as something to sit down to solve a whodunnit, or check in as you walk past your TV set, or just have the good music and characters bantering about as your own background soundtrack as you get things done, work or play. And play find-the-pineapple–yep, there is a pineapple hidden in every episode (we found all but one). All 120 episodes are now streaming on Amazon Prime, the series airs weekdays on the Hallmark Movies and Mysteries channel, and USA Network just announced a marathon beginning this week, easy to catch for anyone with basic cable or the network app.
Billed as the Super-sized Psychtacular Binge-a-thon or as Shawn calls it, the Suck It COVID-19 Binge-a-Thon, the marathon on USA Network is the biggest Psych marathon in the network’s history. All eight seasons will air weekly this month, starting this coming Wednesday, April 8, at 9 p.m. Central. Airing from 2006 to 2014, the series starred James Roday as Shawn Spencer, a fake psychic detective who runs a psychic detective agency with his pal Burton “Gus” Guster, played by Dulé Hill. The duo is brought in by the Santa Barbara police department after Shawn convinces Chief Vick (played by Kirsten Nelson) and two key detectives, Juliet (played by Maggie Lawson) and Carlton “Lassie” Lassiter (played by Tim Omundson), that he has psychic powers. He actually doesn’t have psychic powers, but his uncanny, Sherlock Holmesian powers of perception may as well be psychic. And to top it off, the cast is rounded out by Corbin Bernsen as Shawn’s ex-cop dad–who knew Bernsen could be the perfect comedic straight man for a series?
Will we hear more about the second Psych movie in production, titled Psych 2: Lassie Come Home, with new face Joel McHale and Jimmi Simpson back from the grave as Mary, and Kurt Fuller as fun-loving coroner Woody? It’s expected to premiere as the first film on a new NBC streaming service later this year–something to look forward to! Every fan of the series will be happy to hear updates from Omundson, who took a break from acting due to a stroke. He’ll join Roday, Hill, Lawson, Nelson, and Bernsen in the new movie, and all month long, sharing their favorite Psychmoments and memories as part of the marathon.
Here’s a new video update from currently sheltering-at-home Shawn and Gus:
Even after 121 episodes, from 2006 to 2015, Psych fans couldn’t get enough. Earlier this year USA Network announced a reunion show and the long wait is almost over. Psych: The Movie is less than two weeks away. James Roday is back as Shawn Spencer with his sidekick of many names, Dulé Hill, as Burton “Sillypants Jackson” Guster. Corbin Bernsen, Kirsten Nelson, Maggie Lawson, and Kurt Fuller are also expected back, and somehow Jimmi Simpson will return as Mary. Look for Zachary Levi as a villain, and Jazmyn Simon, Ralph Macchio, and Charlotte Flair are also set to appear in the special. Psych creator Steve Franks co-wrote the movie with James Roday and will direct. Series co-star Tim Omundson, who played Lassiter, suffered a stroke and so it looks like he will only have one scene in the show. But if all goes well, there may be more made-for-TV movies down the road.
But while you’re waiting for the movie, why not check out the book? What? You didn’t know there was a book? Many of the most diehard “Psych-os” (what the fans call themselves) may not realize Shawn Spencer and Burton Guster have their own 290 page guide for wannabe Private Eyes. It’s the aptly named Psych’s Guide to Crime Fighting for the Totally Unqualified, by Shawn Spencer and Burton Guster (and Chad Gervich*), and it’s just the thing for fans to refresh their memories of some of the best comic banter ever dressed up as a detective show. Shawn tries very hard to write a professional book, and well, fails at that, but not after much encouragement from Juliet “Jules” O’Hara and corrections and opposition from Guster.
Fans will appreciate that the book is, of course, dedicated to actor Billy Zane, and it features a foreword by Tears for Fears frontman Curt Smith. Look for hundreds of callbacks to the series, and an entire volume of Shawn re-interpreting things he may or may not have overheard at the police station and during his many cases closed successfully for the Santa Barbara Police Department. Plus some advice from Henry Spencer (SBPD ret.) and Detective Carlton Lassiter. There’s even a twice-baked potato recipe from Mr. Yang.
Even after 121 episodes, from 2006 to 2015, Psych fans couldn’t get enough. Earlier this year USA Network announced a reunion show and it will air in December. The cast was featured in a panel at San Diego Comic-Con yesterday, generating great buzz and fan excitement for the holiday show, titled Psych: The Movie. The only down beat is that co-star Tim Omundson, who played Lassiter on the series, suffered a stroke and so it looks like he will only have one scene in the show. But if all goes well, there may be more made-for-TV movies down the road.
Corbin Bernsen, Kirsten Nelson, Maggie Lawson, and Kurt Fuller will be back, and big news: somehow Jimmi Simpson will return as Mary. Look for Zachary Levi as a villain, and Jazmyn Simon, Ralph Macchio, and Charlotte Flair are also set to appear in the special. Psych creator Steve Franks co-wrote the movie with James Roday and will direct.
Check out this great teaser with James Roday and Dulé Hill for Psych: The Movie:
Westworld was writer/director Michael Crichton’s original high-tech vacation theme park-turned disaster blockbuster film, from 1973. Twenty years before Jurassic Park’s dinosaurs went on a murderous rampage, it was a sideshow automaton from the Old West pavilion that turned on the tourists. We showed you the first teaser trailer for the new series Westworld (discussed here at borg.com) and now we have a fuller look at the newest incarnation of borgs Hollywood has created for us in HBO’s latest trailer for the series.
Jonathan Nolan, brother of The Dark Knight series’ Christopher Nolan, is directing the return of the sci-fi classic, also the latest J.J. Abrams production. The original Westworld starred Yul Brynner as the cool and unflinching Gunslinger, with Richard Benjamin running for his life, along with appearances by James Brolin and Majel Barrett. The new series stars a great, comparable actor to Brynner as the Gunslinger–Ed Harris, as well as Anthony Hopkins in a role like Richard Attenborough’s mastermind in Jurassic Park, plus a host of genre actors: X-Men’s James Marsden, Jimmi Simpson (Psych, House of Cards, Zodiac), Thandie Newton (Mission: Impossible II, The Chronicles of Riddick), Ingrid Bolsø Berdal (Hercules, Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters),Star Trek’s Clifton Collins, Jr., Veronica Mars’ Tessa Thompson, Prince Caspian’s Ben Barnes, and James Bond’s Jeffrey Wright.
But it’s Evan Rachel Wood’s character Delores who takes center stage in this trailer–and hopefully the entire series, which looks to hone in on what it takes to be human. It’s a theme we love to see in the best borg shows, from the mind of Philip K. Dick in Blade Runner to Star Trek: The Next Generation’s Data to Terminator Genisys, and the BBC series Humans last year. We ask the question all the time here. Are the creations in the new Westworld just updated automatons? Merely androids? Or will the biological meet high-tech to give us something else?
Check out the latest trailer for the series Westworld:
Do androids dream of a surreal town in the Old West?
Known for one of the most bizarre characters ever played by actor Yul Brynner, 1973’s Westworld was writer/director Michael Crichton’s original theme park-turned disaster. Twenty years before Jurassic Park’s dinosaurs went on a murderous rampage, it was sideshow automatons from a high-tech vacation spot that turned on the tourists. Now we have a fuller look at the revival series with a preview released this week by HBO for its new Westworld series.
Jonathan Nolan, brother of The Dark Knight series’ Christopher Nolan, is directing the return of the sci-fi classic. The original starred Brynner as the cool and unflinching Gunslinger, with Richard Benjamin running for his life, along with appearances by James Brolin and Majel Barrett. The new series stars a great, comparable actor to Brynner–Ed Harris, as well as Anthony Hopkins, James Marsden, Jimmi Simpson, Ingrid Bolsø Berdal,Star Trek’s Clifton Collins, Jr., and James Bond’s Jeffrey Wright.
The new trailer creates a world that feels very much like the trapped, askew community in Wayward Pines, and unlike the original film the series delves into what it’s like to be an android or borg as was so nicely handled in the series Humans.
Check out the first teaser for the series Westworld:
Known for one of the most bizarre characters ever played by actor Yul Brynner, 1973’s Westworld was writer/director Michael Crichton’s original theme park-turned disaster. Twenty years before Jurassic Park’s dinosaurs went on a murderous rampage, it was sideshow automatons from a high-tech vacation spot that turned on the tourists. Will HBO’s new series Westworld also add in the other theme parks (like RomanWorld) as in the original? We’ll know soon.
Jonathan Nolan, brother of The Dark Knight series’ Christopher Nolan, is directing the return of the sci-fi classic. The original starred Brynner as the cool and unflinching Gunslinger, with Richard Benjamin running for his life, along with appearances by James Brolin and Majel Barrett. The new series stars a great, comparable actor to Brynner–Ed Harris, as well as Anthony Hopkins, James Marsden, Jimmi Simpson, and James Bond’s Jeffrey Wright.
Check out the first teaser for the series Westworld:
We’re beginning Hour 31 of the “99 Psychs on the Wall” Marathon on the cable channel Cloo here at midnight Monday morning. Have you seen all 99 Psych episodes? We have. Many times each for some, like the Halloween episode “Tuesday the 17th,” or when Henry goes undercover in “The Old and the Restless,” and Juliet dons roller skates in “Talk Derby to Me.” And we have found a pineapple (or something that looks pretty darned close) hidden or not-so-hidden in almost every episode. The funniest ever detective-crime-drama-comedy beat the odds to get renewed for yet another season with next year’s Season 8, and hits the rare benchmark of 100 hours on television. We’re eager to watch the 100th episode premiere Wednesday, March 27, 2013, on the USA Network.
If you haven’t watched Psych before, tune in any time to the Cloo cable channel before Wednesday night and pick any episode. Psych stars James Roday as Shawn Spencer, a guy who was raised by cop father Henry (Corbin Bernsen) to pay incredibly close attention to details, and he uses this to fake psychic abilities with a detective agency of sorts called “Psych” with lifelong best friend Gus (Dulé Hill), who at any time may be randomly renamed on a case by Shawn as anything from Ghee Buttersnaps to Lavender Gooms to Lemongrass Gogulope. Shawn and Gus create a perfect buddy team-up and once you get on their wavelength you’re in for a lot of fun keeping up with pop culture references dropped sometimes wrong and sometimes right.
Early episodes began with a flashback of Shawn and dad Henry, leading to some kind of parallel experience later in the episode. Young Shawn and Gus were as funny as old Shawn and Gus. Corbin Bernsen’s Henry is a great codger who knows about his son’s fake business and disapproves but never lets on to anyone else.
Shawn and Gus are often hired on by a likable and trusting police chief, Karen Vick, played by Kirsten Nelson. The change-up compared to other detective shows is Chief Vick knows Shawn’s tactics are a little off kilter but he gets results time and again so she ignores his eccentricities and keeps bringing him back to help with Santa Barbara Police Department cases. The SBPD actually is filmed in Vancouver, BC, which can add its own humor as actors can be in a scene wearing shorts on a typical California afternoon yet you see their breath when they speak. The SBPD includes two other key characters, Shawn’s late season love interest Detective Juliet O’Hara (Maggie Lawson), and her partner, Detective Carlton (“Lassie”) Lassiter, played like Sergeant Joe Friday by Timothy Omundson. Lassiter never approves of Shawn’s methods, yet Juliet believes in Shawn’s “powers” no matter how strange–a bit like Lois Lane not recognizing Superman is Clark Kent.
Other great recurring characters are Officer McNabb (Sage Brocklebank), the hilarious coroner Woody (Kurt Fuller), Shawn’s sweet and equally quirky high school crush Abigail (Rachael Leigh Cook), Shawn’s mom Madeleine (Cybill Shepherd), the really, really strange Mary Lightly (Jimmi Simpson), the psychotic Mr. Yang (Ally Sheedy), Juliet’s love interest Declan Rand (Nestor Carbonell), and Lassiter’s criminal girlfriend Marlowe (Kristy Swanson).
Countless episodes should be included in the annals of classic television, and many bring in some of the best big actor guest stars as well as many blasts from the past. If you miss the Cloo “99 Psychs on the Wall” marathon this week, nearly all the episodes but only the latest from this season can be found on streaming Netflix.
Here are twelve episodes that are not to be missed:
With all that has been written and all the photographs we have of Abraham Lincoln, moviemakers keep trying to convey their own visions of the one and true 16th U.S. president. Americans have such a revered image of Lincoln that Hollywood has rarely portrayed him. Famed director John Ford’s brother Francis played Lincoln in a 1913 production called When Lincoln Paid. In 1930 Walter Huston, father of famed director John Huston, portrayed Lincoln in D.W. Griffith’s Abraham Lincoln. But the two best-known and best-loved performances were by Henry Fonda in John Ford’s 1939 production of Young Mr. Lincoln, and Raymond Massey in 1940’s Abe Lincoln in Illinois. In 2012 we saw two major movies with Lincoln as the lead character, Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln starring Oscar nominee Daniel Day-Lewis, and Benjamin Walker as a younger Lincoln in Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter. The latter was dismissed by critics as fluff for the most part, instead heaping praise on the big Spielberg film. This is unfortunate, because in any other year Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter might have received a better reception.
Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter poses the purely fantasy idea that Abe Lincoln was not only a politician and patriot but an apprentice hunter cleaning up the countryside to avoid the spread of vampires throughout the U.S. before and during the Civil War. Gettysburg wasn’t just about conquering the Southern rebellion, it was about defeating the vampire-laden confederacy.
Where Daniel Day-Lewis opted to play Lincoln as craggy and gruff, more so than Raymond Massey portrayed him in Abe Lincoln in Illinois, Benjamin Walker’s take is much closer to Henry Fonda’s pleasant and forthright everyman from Young Mr. Lincoln. Despite Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter offering up an admittedly male, historical version of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, director Timur Bekmambetov went well beyond what you’d normally find in a film so blatantly tied to a gimmick, that of screenwriter/novelist Seth Grahame-Smith following up his earlier well-received mash-up Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. In fact, pushing aside for a moment the vampire hunting, the film offers an admirable view of the president, and in particular his relationship with Mary Todd. And that is saying a lot for a film that is part axe-waving and vampire killing.
