Anybody else watching this? I really enjoyed the first season, and just finished watching the first two shows of the second season, which seem indicate it’s only getting better. In the admittedly very small sub-genre of comedy whodunits, this is my favorite since Rumpole of the Bailey.
I’m a big Shalhoub fan and this is such a great role for him. I didn’t think it was that good last season (aside from Tony himself). Promising, but not that good. It’s getting better? Good. I’ll try and catch it again.
I enjoy this show; my only problem with it is that it so often seems to rest on the cliched “genius detective” device of Monk being able to spot and deduce things that no real person, be they normal or abnormal, would ever be able to. He’s only able to make many of his “brilliant” theories and conclusions because the person writing his dialog already knows who did it.
Yeah, the show only works if you buy into the premise that he notices details that no else can see. In the show’s defense, they spend a good deal of time building up this ability as the flip side of his obsessive-compulsive disorder. But definitely, if you don’t buy the premise, you don’t buy the show.
Bub, yes, I think the first two episodes this season were quite good, especially the second, “Mr. Monk Goes to Mexico.” The Mexico location playing very well on his various phobias. A nice little boost this season comes from the addition of a new theme song written and performed by Randy Newman, which fits the Monk character perfectly.
I love this show. I’m going to have to remember to set my VCR on Friday nights.
Now that you mention it, Bub, Shaloub really does make the show. The whodunits really aren’t that interesting in of themselves.
But wasn’t Monk supposed to be a brilliant detective before he suffered the episode that gave rise to the OCD? Or have I read that wrong?
No, you’re not really wrong. But in some of the first season episodes, it’s pointed out that he was always obsessive-compulsive. In one episode, Capt. Stotlemyre talks about how when he partnered with Monk, Monk was always arranging everything in the squad car. The murder of his wife supposedly aggravated all his various phobias to the point of incapacitating him.
It makes sense that someone like him would be detail oriented.
My wife and I love this show. I think if you let go of some of the inconsistencies (and there are MANY), then you can just relax and enjoy the characterization. Really, that’s what makes this show great. I have to disagree with Whitta a little bit though. While the observations are often impossible, I often know how the murder was done before it is revealed. For instance, the first episode of season two, I had the basics (though the actual way is physically impossible). But the point about noticing certain details is valid. I still think that the WAY he explains them is more important than whether or not he could have found them.
This show is laugh out loud funny.
I agree with Sharp, 90% of the show is about the process.
Also how hot Sharona is.
But I can’t stand the new theme song! It’s so discordant, it sounds like it’s forty or fifty songs sewn together randomly, it hurts my ears.
It sounds like a typical Randy Newman song to me, but then he’s never been described as melodic. Besides, discordant fits the theme of the song: “It’s a jungle out there!”
I watch Monk when I can, as I’m a huge Tony Shalhoub fan. I’m a much bigger fan of USA’s other cool show, The Dead Zone. They just released the first season of THAT on DVD, and boy am I happy.
Sharona IS hot. I like the way they play that up by making all the geeky guys hit on her. She’s kind of trampy looking, but she never seems to take anyone up on it…at least, not when she is sober. I wouldn’t mind downing a tank of beer with her. I don’t drink, but I like to watch, if you know what I mean.
So how DID Sharona earn those beads in Mexico… Flashing, or…?
Sorry, Denny, anyone who went to school 90 minutes from New Awlins knows EXACTLY how beads are earned… ;)
I love this show, it’s just quirky enough and Shaloub is good enough to pull it off. And once in a while we’ll catch the “big clue” before the end (such as a blind woman offering her left hand to shake with a guy who has his right arm in a cast) so I don’t think it totally falls in the mold of the shows where the audience has no chance to figure it out before the end.
Well some of the episodes have no hope for the audience to figure out. Some of the episodes are ‘we know how they did it, but how will Monk find out’ and the others are ‘can you figure it out before Monk’. And I like that, it keeps the show from getting stale.
I went to the casino the other day and had the ‘coffee’ conversation with a friend of mine, he took out a silver half dollar from his winnings, so I threw in two quarters to make it even. He said ‘What’d you do that for? Now they’re mixed.’ I said ‘But it’s even.’ We repeated it a few times before we realized what we were saying. …I guess you had to be there.
One thing I like is that they brought us in in the middle of things, that way the entire past can be tweaked as needed without altering anything major. But it’s a great show, I hope they don’t try to change anything.
My favorite scene from the show to date is from “Mr. Monk and the Airplane:” “Pete and Repeat are in a boat.” The ultimate obsessive-compulsive nightmare. The way the sweat started to break out on Shaloub’s face was priceless.
Dealing with the plots in the show, I think it takes its attitude from Columbo. Where its not really important who did it or how (in the case of Columbo, they show you that in the first 10 minutes), the joy is in watching the character figuring it out.
Yeah, i agree. That show is really good. Tony Shaloub executes his charecter perfectly.
I totally agree.
I’ve seen the first season, and both me and my wife enjoy the show. Only problem occurs when they spell out the jokes about Monk’s disorders too clearly. Like the episode when they’re on vacation and this stand up makes fun of him in the hotel bar. Besides from not being funny, it’s totally unnecessary in a show that otherwise hold such high standard.