StumpTown Entertainment

Summer has become the time of new series on cable while the major networks just pretend that people stop wanting to watch decent TV in the summer. The track record has actually been fairly good. Usually there are 3-6 new scripted shows (the only ones I care about. I live reality, I don't need to watch it and pretend it's not scripted), and out of those there have been one or two good ones a year recently and out of those maybe one sticks. Nothing too ambitious, but a better percentage than the networks. Last year I watched the 4400 which is basically X-Men without the fancy suits and gadgets where we're not sure if the mutants are good or bad or both. And of course, there was my favorite Over There which is apparently not coming back.

I have already commented on Blade which I liked well enough to keep watching for now and then last night I watched Psych. What I loved about this show was that it was such a blatant rip off of Monk and was so obvious, that USA basically admits it in some adds it ran showing both Tony Shaloub from Monk and the main guy from Psych. Basically both have the same ability to notice the little things that others don't and reason out what they mean. The only difference is that Monk is a crazy freak and the new guy is an immature brat.

Usually, when a show like Monk catches on, there are some rip offs, but not usually such a close one by the exact same network. Oh well. In some ways it works a bit better than Monk only because the schtick about all of Monk's hangups got tiresome. Psych was not great by any means. but it was decent light, brainless summer watching and I'm going to give it a few more episodes before I decide. For right now, it's a maybe, but if you're looking for something mildly amusing to watch instead of the latest version of American Idol, you could do a lot worse.