Spellingg Bee

The installment features guest appearances by Kirsten Nelson, Alexander Calvert, Kyle Pejpar, and Jeremy Loheir, among others.

In the episode, Shawn and Gus are watching a spelling bee on TV when the expected champion collapses suddenly.

With help from Shawn's father, Henry Spencer (Corbin Bernsen) they discover poison in the spellmaster's meal, confirming their thoughts.

The installment was originally written to be the third episode of the season, but was moved up by the show's producers to introduce the character Juliet O'Hara earlier.

Later, Burton "Gus" Guster (Dulé Hill) is in the Psych office, watching the local spelling bee on TV.

Shortly after Shawn enters the office, expected spelling bee champion Brandon Vu (Issey Lamb) collapses, to the shock of the audience.

They receive a phone call from interim police chief Karen Vick (Kirsten Nelson) asking them to investigate the bee.

While they are waiting between interviews, spellmaster Cavanaugh (Alex Bruhanski) experiences chest pain and falls over a railing to his death, in front of Shawn and Gus.

The police write off his death as a heart attack; Shawn and Gus are skeptical, and break into Cavanaugh's booth to investigate.

He disguises himself as the new spellmaster in order to enter the booth, and discovers that Cavanaugh had found out that Miklous Prochazka (Richard Zeman) was helping his son Jiri (Alexander Calvert), a contestant in the bee, to cheat by spelling out his son's words to him in Morse code using electrical impulses that were transferred to his false inhaler.

Tracy Hillman was the installment's associate producer, and Michael McMurray was the director of photography, while Allan Lee and Anupam Nigam acted as the editors.

[8][9] The episode was originally planned to be the third installment of the season, but was moved up by the show's producers in order to introduce the major character Juliet O'Hara, played by Maggie Lawson.

The scene introducing O'Hara was filmed as part of the fourth episode, "Woman Seeking Dead Husband: Smokers Okay, No Pets", but was added to the installment because of the need to bring in the character.

The show's casting directors brought in the actors because older versions of young Shawn and Gus were needed for the flashback scenes in the episode.

[7] Shortly before the installment was filmed, Kirsten Nelson gave birth to her daughter, which would later be portrayed in the episode "Shawn vs. the Red Phantom".

The show is meant to take place in the Southern California city of Santa Barbara; however, most of the series is filmed in Vancouver, British Columbia, and the surrounding communities.

[21] In order to make the show seem more realistic, Franks and other writers talked to his father, a former Los Angeles police officer, and several psychics.

[28][29][30] "Spellingg Bee", along with the fourteen other episodes from Psych's first season were released on a four-disc DVD set in the United States and Canada on June 26, 2007.

[2] According to the Nielsen Media Research, in its original American broadcast, "Spellingg Bee" was viewed by a total of 4.71 million people.

[37] "Spellingg Bee" was ranked eighth in total viewers in the week of July 10–16, falling slightly behind its lead-in program, Monk, which was viewed by 4.89 million people.

[35] The installment's ratings were a major drop from the show's previous episode, "Pilot", which was viewed by 6.06 million people, and had a 1.9 rating/6 share.

In his review for IGN, contributor Colin Moriarty heavily criticized the episode, calling it "unintentionally lackluster".

[43] In an article for The New York Times, journalist Bill Carter mentions that after just the two episodes, "USA Network seems to have found another drama hit with 'Psych'".

[49] Several critics compared the episode and show to the then-new Lifetime network series Angela's Eyes; in his article for the Los Angeles Daily News, journalist David Kronke stated that "Lifetime's new crime drama 'Angela's Eyes' is essentially the USA Network's new series 'Psych' inside out and played without laughs".

Series creator Steve Franks was asked by iTunes in 2009 to select his twelve favorite episodes to be put on a special DVD release.

When describing the episode, Franks stated that "The Spellingg Bee has my one of my favorite scenes in the run of the show when Shawn takes over for the spellmaster and has to investigate a murder while making up words for the contestants to spell".