‘Psych’: It’s all over but the zombies

On being outlived by “The Mentalist,” which followed “Psych” and was criticized early on for having a very similar but far grimmer premise ...

Roday: “They started after us, and they had a zillion viewers a week.”

Franks: “Now, we want ‘The Mentalist’ to go on for 20 more years. We want it to be the ‘Gunsmoke’ of this era.”

Roday: “It’ll just keep us in the zeitgeist with them. People will be saying, ‘ “Mentalist,” parenthesis, serious version of “Psych.” ’ ”

Franks: “So we have nothing but positive feelings.”

Roday: “We got every drop of milk out of that, that we possibly could.”

On feeling good about the end of it all ...

Roday: “We’re at peace with the decision to call it a show, because honestly, I feel like we did everything we could think of, just about. I always make a notebook every year of ideas that I want to do every season. I went back, and the ones we didn’t do, I don’t really feel like, ‘Oh, dang, we didn’t do that thing.’ ”

Franks: “At the end of every year, James and I would get together, and we would talk about how we were going to push the boundaries of what the show was allowed to do each year. And, if we couldn’t figure out a way to push the boundaries any more, we both said, ‘OK, we’ll be done at that point.’

“And this year, we’re remaking one of our own episodes, and James’ zombie episode is so - it’s just so free. It’s completely free.”

On why no time travel ...

Franks: “I spun so many writers room wheels for so many weeks each year, thinking I had a new way to make it logical. But the thing is, you can’t do time travel without actually traveling through time, and that was the one thing I couldn’t reconcile.”

On “Let’s Get Hairy,” the 2009 episode (co-written by Roday) featuring “American Werewolf in London” star David Naughton ...

Roday: “The werewolf episode was a guilty pleasure of mine. It probably wasn’t the best storytelling we’ve ever done, but the fact that we got Josh Malina in a diaper, in a wheelbarrow, no less. That was pure silliness.”

“Psych” concludes its eight-season run Wednesday on USA Network.

Franks: “I’m just as happy with an oddball, awkward, weird joke as I am with a big, ridiculous, silly set piece. But silly is one of the many things we go to.”

On going to the zombie well at the end ...

Roday: “Zombies was something that was on our board forever, too. To be completely honest, a lot of us finally getting to do zombies has to do with it being the final episode, and me directing, and everybody saying, ‘OK, Roday, you can have zombies.’

“We did not have real zombies, but they looked awfully good. What was cool about it was, it was a taste of zombies. It was a kitchen-sink sort of horror episode, where we didn’t hang the whole thing just on zombies. That probably would have been a mistake. We gave you a little bit of everything.”

Across

1. Vergara of “Modern Family”

5. “This Is the __”; 2013 James Franco movie

8. __ __ instant; suddenly

9. Role on “The Goldbergs”

13. Natalie Cole’s dad

14. Ma in Marseilles

15. “Days of __ Lives”

16. “Yes, __”

17. Mac alternatives

18. “Life __ __”; 2012 film

21. To’s partner, in phrase

22. Alice’s workplace

25. Actor on “M*A*S*H”

26. Compete

27. Simon or Williams

28. “Vanilla __”; movie for Tom Cruise

30. Role on “Two and a Half Men”

34. CX

35. “__ 911!” (2003-09)

36. “__ Got a Secret”

Down

3.

4. “__ Plain Sight” (2008-12)

5. “Unhappily __ After”

6. 90 degrees from NW

7. “__ Dead Gorgeous”;

Kirsten Dunst film

9. Mayberry resident

10. Period in history

11. “Elementary” actress (2)

12. Time periods: abbr.

14. “Trapper John, __” (1979-86)

19. Role on “The Middle”

20. __ favor; part of a polite hombre’s request

23. Ms. Longoria

24. Actor on “Blue Bloods”

28. Bro or sis

29. “Kourtney & Kim Take New __”

30. “__ Wives”

31. Actor Nicholas __

32. Actress __-Margret

33. “__ Time for Sergeants”

36. Paul’s cousin on “Mad About You”

37. Singer Damone

39. Setting for “Designing Women”: abbr.

40. Spielberg’s 1982 creature