Almost lost amidst all the splash and bubble of Hollywood’s mid-season PR events, some really nice news: James Roday’s Psych just received a 16-episode pick-up for an almost unprecedented seventh season. This keeps the show in the top spot as USA’s longest-running show still in production, and puts it on the same level as USA classics like Monk.
And Roday announced his show’s renewal in the coolest way: to his loyal and diligent (and oh-so-clever) fans first. Over the course of the day, Roday’s Facebook site release four different pictures–pieces in a puzzle. When you put them all together, the puzzle unlocked a video, where Roday and co-star Dulé Hill announced the show’s renewal. (Actually, he asked his fans for a new belt first. Then he said, “Oh, and also, ‘Psych’ is officially coming back for a seventh season, which is very cool…but I’m kinda working on this belt situation right now.”)
The show has been a huge success for USA, bringing more than 2.3 million Live+7 viewers in the 18-49 demo with every episode. (And notice that “Life+7” term. As one of television’s most time-shifted shows, it not only matters how many watch Roday and Co. on its first and second showing; it matters how many TiVo the darn thing and watch it sometime over the next week or so. That’s the wave of the future…and one of the most successful young Latino star/writer/producer on the tube is ridin’ the wave.
USA continues its bizarre and annoying habit of holding new episodes for a full month before letting them onto the internet, but still, you can catch six of this season’s shows (up through last November’s shows), as well as a video of the Psych panel at last summer’s Comic-Con, right here on the USA Net’s web site.
