TV Week TV Week

By Kate O’Hare © Zap2it

In an upscale chain restaurant on a busy road in Manhattan Beach, Calif., not far from the production offices of the USA Network comedydrama “Psych,” and roughly 1,286 miles from the show’s filming location in Vancouver, Canada, star James Roday and series executive producer Steve Franks get together for lunch to discuss not staying too long at the party.

“For a lot of people,” quips Franks, “our second episode was too long at the party.”

Obviously not for everyone, because the show airs it eighth-season - and series - finale on Wednesday, March 26, followed by the “Psych After Show,” a one-hour special hosted by Kevin Pereira (“Attack of the Show”) and featuring a Q&A with the cast and Franks, in front of a live studio audience in Los Angeles.

For those who need to go do some binge viewing in a hurry, “Psych” features Roday (today sporting a full beard that’s about a half-inch short of edging into Old Testament patriarch territory) as Shawn Spencer, a native of Santa Barbara, Calif., who uses his Sherlock Holmes-level powers of deduction to convince people he’s a crime-fighting psychic.

At his side are his best friend from childhood, Burton “Gus” Guster (Dule Hill); his ex-cop dad, Henry (Corbin Bernsen); detective girlfriend Juliet (Maggie Lawson); Police Chief Karen Vick (Kirsten Nelson, who directed the show’s musical episode, which aired in December); and idiosyncratic Detective Carlton Lassiter (Timothy Omundson).

So without further ado, here are Franks and Roday on taking “Psych” out on a high note.

On missing Vancouver ...

Roday: “I personally, am not. I love Vancouver, truly, but I did spend, in all, four years over there - a whole presidential term, in hotels and apartments without air conditioning.”

Franks (who has been staring intently at the sound-level indicators on the smartphone recording the conversation): “It also works as a hypnotist’s device.”