[ SECRET POST #1558 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #1558 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 12 pages, 291 secrets from Secret Submission Post #223.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 1 2 3 - too big ], [ 1 - repeat ], [ 1 - take it to comments ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[ncc-gqmf.livejournal.com]

Except that shows grow and change as they develop, and what is now a show that actually weaves all of those characters together as a cohesive unit is different from a show that in seasons one and two was basically The Shawn and Gus Show with some other people that are there to help move the plot along.

If you think that doesn't work, ask yourself this: would there, in season one, have been any room for an episode where Gus and Lassiter pair off without Shawn?

[lljscrawls.livejournal.com]

Given that Gus and Lassiter didn't yet know each other well enough for that yet? No. Shawn and Gus had known each other for years, and since Gus and Lassie barely knew each other, of course they wouldn't pair off yet. But that by no means indicates that the cast of the show wasn't yet working as an ensemble cast. Supernatural is very much "The Sam and Dean Show," yes. The same cannot be said for Psych. While Shawn is the star and does take up a lot of the limelight, there is a reason that all of the main characters have had spots in the credits since season one.

Let's look at Season One, shall we? As early as Episode Six we get an episode that is centered largely on Lassiter ("Weekend Warriors," which focuses on his Civil War reenactment). Then there's episode ten ("From the Earth to the Starbucks") which opens with him, very drunk, spilling his guts to Shawn, who then helps solve the case of the episode for Lassiter's benefit. Meanwhile, the very last episode of the season ("Scary Sherry . . . Bianca's Toast") has a lot of focus on Juliet, due to her undercover shtick as a sorority girl. Yes, in all of these episodes, Shawn and Gus were the ones working together; however, each of these mentioned episodes also shed the spotlight on another character.

Then we move on to Season Two. Episode Eight ("Rob-a-Bye Baby") focused a lot on Chief Vick and her relation to the others within the Santa Barbara police department. We saw not only the dynamics that she has with Shawn, but also with Lassiter and Juliet. Episode Twelve ("The Old and the Restless") and Episode Fourteen ("Dis-Lodged") were chock-full of moments with Henry.

And in Season Three, we have the very first episode, which sheds new light on Henry (along with Shawn's mother, Madeleine, and Lassiter, who is psycho-analyzed by said mother). Episode Four ("Disco Didn't Die, It Was Murdered!") is another Henry-centric episode. Episode Seven ("Talk Derby To Me") is another Juliet-centric episode, and Episode Eleven ("Lassie Did A Bad, Bad Thing") is another Lassiter-centric ep.

I could go on, but do you see what I'm getting at here? As early as season one, we had episodes that had a large amount of focus on the side characters. No, the characters were not all best buds at the start. But the show has spent five seasons developing their characters as well as their relationships, all leading up to what we saw in "Shawn Takes a Shot in the Dark," in which they all immediately jumped to rescue him -- and on a personal note, too, which can be noted by the fact that Lassiter called Shawn by his given name for the majority of the episode.

Just because the characters weren't all close in the beginning of the series by no means discounts the fact that they weren't all main factors of the ensemble early on. They were. Psych was just actually legitimate by not having characters that were close in the beginning, but allowing the viewers to see how they became close as the show went on. Because honestly, as much as I do adore Shawn and Gus, if Lassiter, Henry, Juliet, and Chief Vick didn't have as big of roles as they did in the early seasons, I would have gotten very bored, very fast. Just like you can't remove Sam or Dean from Supernatural, you cannot remove any one of the six Psych main characters without the show breaking down.

(And keep in mind, the episodes I mentioned are just those I could remember off the top of my head having a large focus on other characters. There were other episodes mixed within the seasons that would often have milder focus on the other characters, too. They weren't quite Day in the Limelight episodes, but the moments were there, sprinkled throughout the main plot of the show.)

[ncc-gqmf.livejournal.com]

Okay, I... think you and I just have different opinions on what makes an "ensemble cast," then. The point is that in those episodes early on, even though it's Lassiter or Vick who initiates the plot, the main action of the episode by far is on Shawn and Gus solving the case, Shawn and Gus's friendship, Shawn and Gus's teamwork, etc. Even Lassiter's tearful confession -- nothing major comes out of that for him in that episode. It's an episode about Shawn and Gus.

Later on, the show would actually begin to start having episodes that were about Lassiter, Henry, and Juliet, and to a lesser extent, Vick. That, to me, is an ensemble cast. Most shows have side characters who do some lifting every now and again, but when 90% of the focus is on two people, I don't consider than an ensemble.

Like, Due South had the police/Consulate staffers, Starsky and Hutch had Huggy Bear, The X-Files had The Lone Gunmen and Deep Throat and Skinner, Xena had a whole assortment of side characters... I don't think any of them qualify as ensemble shows. An ensemble show is something like Criminal Minds, The Office, Grey's Anatomy, Friends, Battlestar, etc. where there are several characters getting equal or nearly equal weight. I think you can argue that Psych is now sort of becoming one of those shows, but definitely not when it started.

ETA: SAG (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Screen_Actors_Guild_Award_for_Outstanding_Performance_by_an_Ensemble_in_a_Comedy_Series) take (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Screen_Actors_Guild_Award_for_Outstanding_Performance_by_an_Ensemble_in_a_Drama_Series) on the subject, for example.

[(Anonymous)]

You seem to be meshing all of the side characters in the first two seasons of Psych into one big piece of the character that got attention pie chart. But it doesn't work like that, an ensemble isn't about trying to show that the main characters don't take up ALL the pie -- it's about it being evenly divided amongst the cast the entire time. And in any case, Gus and Shawn still took up at least 75% of it the entire time. That's not an ensemble. That's lead characters with a good supporting cast.

Think of it as a video game. In the first two seasons, who would the playable characters be? Gus and Shawn. Who would be the characters that they talk to get information? The rest of the cast. In a true ensemble you would trade off characters, you would have to or the story wouldn't work.