With Sixteen Episodes, Monk Season Three Transforms Into A Show Very Much Worth Watching!

The Good: Natalie!, Interesting cases, Decent character work
The Bad: Somewhat formulaic in the plots.
The Basics: After nine episodes, Monk Season Three transforms when Natalie replaces Sharona and the show gets more overtly funny.


For those who have not read my reviews of Monk Seasons 1 and 2 (reviewed here and here, respectively!), when I started watching Monk in syndication, I came in during the Natalie years. As I have restarted the show on DVD at the beginning, that has led to much kvetching on my part about the role of Sharona in the early seasons of Monk. Fortunately, with Monk Season Three, that abruptly changes as Sharona makes an impromptu departure from the series and is replaced by Natalie.

And the series just gets better! Right around the time of the character switch, the show settled into a more consistent pattern of leaving the killer for the reveal (in the early episodes, viewers see the murder and the murderer and the shows were about how Monk figures out their plans and machinations). With the change from Sharona to Natalie, Monk’s life is effectively shaken up and the series commits to more overt comedy, at least for the remainder of this season.

In the third season of Monk, Monk solves murders in San Francisco related to a series of power outages and a mob boss. He is fired from working in tandem with the police force by a new commissioner (but solves three cases at once anyway) and he tries to exonerate what appears to be a murderous monkey. Monk discovers that Sharona might have given a murderer their inspiration when she takes a creative writing class and after Natalie arrives, he has to solve a murder that appears to have been committed by a dead martial arts star. And when Natalie runs for the school board, Monk must figure out who is shooting at her and why!

In this season, Monk travels a bit more than the prior seasons. Starting with a trip to New York City to get more clues about Trudy’s death, Monk finds himself in Hollywood working on a game show. He is also sent to a cabin in the woods as the subject of a protection detail, which makes him feel less protected when he comes to believe a neighbor is a murderer! And when Stottlemeyer goes to Las Vegas and becomes convinced that he has solved the murder of a wealthy socialite (then forgotten it), he calls Monk to help him prove he is right!

The third season of Monk more effectively integrates actual character changes and elements into it than prior seasons. In the third season, the principle characters are:

Adrian Monk – Still obsessive compulsive and suffering from numerous phobias as a result of his wife’s murder, Monk begins to travel more. He is deeply upset and betrayed when Sharona abruptly remarries her ex- and moves away, leaving him in a lurch. After several early encounters where he has difficulty adapting to the differences between her and Sharona, Monk begins to accept Natalie,

Sharona Flemming – She tries to distance herself from Monk for her own mental health, in the process taking a writing class that drives her into the grips of a very real sense of being crazy. She falls for a mob thug and encourages Monk to use medication (though she does not like the jerk he becomes when he does) before she abruptly departs,

Natalie Teeger – A single mother whose husband was a soldier, she is now raising her daughter, Julie, alone. She tries to teach Julie to be fearless by setting a positive example and running for school board, despite getting threats against her life. She quickly adapts to Monk’s eccentricities, if not his cheapness,

Captain Leland Stottlemeyer – Relying upon Monk more than ever, he is deeply dismayed to learn that he is as smart as Monk when he is blackout drunk (and only then). His relationship with his wife continues to deteriorate, though he tries very hard to placate her by doing things like allowing her to shoot a documentary on how he runs the department. He actually enjoys taking Monk out of the city when Monk has to be secluded,

and Lieutenant Disher – who is little more than a sidekick this season. In fact, outside strengthening his relationship with Sharona shortly before her departure by believing in her when she thinks she is going crazy, he is a nonentity this season. He survives the changeover between Monk’s assistant to live to headline episodes in subsequent seasons.

Because the show has such a formula to it, by the third season, the actors all know their marks. It is in the third season, though, that Tony Shaloub begins to truly shine and the writers and directors seem to open up to making the show a more overt comedy. In “Mr. Monk And The Election,” for example, Monk hilariously saves Natalie from a grenade, which he throws in the refrigerator, then returns to straighten. Between the physical comedy and the comedic recap, scenes like that stand out as laugh-out-loud funny and Tony Shaloub is rightly given praise for bringing his amazing comic sensibility to the role.

Traylor Howard, who plays Natalie, seems to instantly adapt to the ensemble. She has great on-screen chemistry with Shaloub for witty back and forths and in the few moments the two share where they discuss deeply personal issues, Howard holds her own dramatically with Shaoulb (who plays upset and disturbed extraordinarily well!). Howard plays “nice” very well and after how insensitive Sharona could be, Natalie comes in as a breath of fresh air in many ways.

On DVD, the sixteen episodes of Monk Season Three come with limited featurettes. There is a featurette on Monk and his quirks and another on Natalie, as well as a “Life Before Monk” featurette. These are not extraordinary features, but they are better than nothing. Fortunately, this is a season that is easy enough to recommend based on the strength of the primary programming!

For reviews of other works featuring Ted Levine, be sure to check out my reviews of:
Shutter Island
Memoirs Of A Geisha
Evolution
The Silence Of The Lambs

7/10

For other television reviews, please visit my Movie Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2012 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
| | |

In Its Second Season, Monk Begins To Sway Me!

The Good: Funny, Engaging mysteries, Decent acting
The Bad: Repetitive feel to the plots, I’m still not wild about Sharona.
The Basics: As former detective Adrian Monk continues to work to get back on the San Francisco police force, he helps the detectives there solve murder mysteries.


When my wife and I began watching Monk together, I think I got spoiled. I started with the later seasons and I enjoyed the interactions between Monk and his assistant, Natalie. So, when we went back to watch Monk from the beginning (season 1 is reviewed here!), I found the show to be much rougher and more formulaic than I usually like. Fortunately, with the second season of Monk the show starts heading in the right direction.

While many of the mysteries in the second season of Monk are performed by an obvious villain in the teaser – and the episode details how Monk figures it out, as opposed to leaving the audience wondering who the culprit is – the show still has some of its original form. That also means that Monk continues to get into situations that are awkward that could easily be mitigated if only he – or especially his assistant Sharona – would say, “Monk is obsessive compulsive!” While this might not be a generally satisfactory thing, when Monk begins to freak out at the germs in prison in the season finale, his life is actually in jeopardy and one might think that is a good moment to say something more than “it’s nothing personal” or the like!

In the second season of Monk the cases get a bit more esoteric, but they are often more enjoyable for their cleverness. The season two DVD set features all sixteen episodes and some of them are absolutely fascinating. Monk returns to his late wife’s high school when a teacher’s suicide there makes him suspicious. A completely baffling mystery of how a skydiver drowned midair sends Monk to Mexico as part of an odd revenge story. And a murder at a carnival has an unlikely suspect when Monk’s best suspect for the murderer who was seen fleeing the scene of the crime, has a broken leg!

Stottlemeyer’s relationship with his wife continues to deteriorate and a documentary on the world’s oldest man may be the clue Monk needs when the old man turns up dead. Stottlemeyer proves his love, though, by setting Monk on the case when his wife is in a car accident from a sniper’s shot. A serial killer will strike again if Monk cannot find the connection between the killer’s disparate victims. And Monk must resist the lures of television, when all his other friends give in, when he suspects a popular television actor is a killer.

It is in the second season that Monk’s reclusive brother, Ambrose, is introduced in “Mr. Monk And The Three Pies.” Murder hits home for Monk when Monk’s paperboy is killed and Monk and his friends believe the murder is to keep Monk himself from reading something in the paper. Monk gets a little derivative of The X-Files when Monk and Sharona must impersonate a married couple in “Mr. Monk Gets Married.”

Even in its second season, Monk is very plot-based. The episodes are much more about the cases than any serialization involving the characters. In fact, more than Monk’s occasional quest to get reinstated with the police force, the second season of Monk is dominated, in terms of recurring motifs, by Stottlemeyer’s problems in keeping his marriage together. Stottlemeyer’s wife begins to become more demanding and less appreciative, even when Stottlemeyer bends over backward to try to please her.

The greatest evidence of character development in the second season comes from Sharona. Sharona is much less acerbic toward Monk. While she does not entirely tolerate his eccentricities, in the second season, she seems kinder toward him. Also, Sharona is shown spending more time with her son, Benjy in this season. This allows Bitty Schram to play off someone other than Tony Shaloub and she and her young co-star, Kane Ritchotte seem very organically like family in this season.

All around, the acting in the second season of Monk is pretty wonderful. Tony Shaloub has the role of Adrian Monk down pat by this point and his ability to portray uncomfortable at every little thing truly makes the character work. Ted Levine is also noteworthy as Captain Leland Stottlemeyer. In the second season, he is able to bring more emotional depth to the role than the character had in the first season. Levine plays emotive very well, often with a muted performance that makes it seem like Stottlemeyer is a tortured character who is just waiting to burst. I may have come to tolerate Sharona more in the second season, but watching Levine perform was often what made the show special.

Also, it is worth noting that in the second season of Monk the show and its situations are often more overtly funny than in the first season. While some of the humor is still based on situations that are more painfully awkward, the second season of Monk features much more overt humor in its lines and in the situations. The introduction of Ambrose is memorable for many laugh-out-loud lines.

While “Mr. Monk And The T.V. Star” is highly-self referential, as it involves a devoted fan of a popular television series who loathes changes made to the series, the episode works (just as the second season does) because this is when Monk was, rightly, becoming a phenomenon. While the DVD set is light on bonus features, this is still one that is worth picking up.

For other mysteries, be sure to visit my reviews of:
Psych - Season 4
Carnivale
Veronica Mars

6/10

For other television reviews, be sure to check out my Television Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2012 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
| | |

With Its One-Disc Pilot Episode Monk Illustrates A Worthy Detective, And An Unremarkable DVD.

The Good: Good acting, Interesting characters
The Bad: No DVD bonus features, Pretty standard detective plot
The Basics: With the "Premiere Episode" release of Monk, an interesting character is created who walks through all of the conceits of the detective series in his first outing.


All detective shows are essentially the same. There, I've said it and committed the ultimate blasphemy to fans of the mystery genre. Objective viewers or readers - little is changed between mystery books and television shows - may easily acknowledge the truth of that argument, but for fans of the genre, it's enough to make me a pariah. And yet, it is true. The only things that differentiate the calibers of detective stories are the characters involved and the level of case being investigated. In other words, it's the characters that make the series and in detective/mystery series' it's the defining factor of what makes for worthwhile vs. passe entertainment.

What separates NYPD Blue from Law & Order from Kojak from Monk is all in the character work and the level of crimes being committed. With NYPD Blue, we have a team of police detectives who week after week are led by the gruff and damaged Andy Sipowicz on cases that help common people right the wrongs done to them. With Monk, we have Adrian Monk, a brilliant loner suffering from an obsessive-compulsive disorder solving crimes in San Francisco. Presented as a no-frills DVD, the pilot episode of Monk, “Monk: The Premiere Episode" is another in a collection of DVDs that seem to be all about luring in a new audience using inexpensive DVDs.

Adrian Monk, obsessed with whether or not the oven has been turned off back at home, is consulting on a murder investigation of a young woman when there is an assassination attempt made on the campaigning mayor. Killed in the crossfire is a bodyguard and when Monk notices some similarities in the higher profile case, he is brought in to consult on the slaying of the mayor's bodyguard. Encouraged by his nurse, Sharona, who is frustrated by how much time and attention handling Monk demands of her Monk begins pursuing his own leads that connect the murdered woman and the dead bodyguard, potentially implicating the mayor, his opponent, his wife and virtually every member of his staff!

Along the way, Adrian Monk is thrust into circumstances that make him uncomfortable and expose his social awkwardness. Meeting with the mayor's wife, he encounters a school full of young children which is basically a hell on earth for the germaphobe. He knocks over a strategic map with hundreds of color-coded pins only to be able to replace all of them exactly based on the single glance he had at the board prior to knocking it over. And, because this is a pilot episode where the purpose is to establish as much in the way of characterization as possible, he ends up on a pole, paralyzed by a fear of heights.

Monk - The Premiere Episode falls into virtually all of the obvious character conceits for establishing a character and a series. Adrian Monk is instantly created as one of the most quirky, brilliant and distinctive detectives since Colombo. He is characterized as suffering from an obsessive compulsive disorder stemming from the unsolved murder of his wife, which instantly raises the intriguing character possibility that at some point, Monk could be cured and lose his distinctive qualities! After all, if all that separates Monk and Monk is the quirky brilliance that comes from a man suffering a debilitating mental illness that makes him unable to live and work with most so-called "normal" people, the open case of his wife's death, with it being the acknowledged trigger to his paralysis, hangs like a shadow over the character and the series. It leaves the viewer - even in this first episode - caught between wanting to see Monk get the closure needed to move on and the secret desire to keep him in his damaged state.

Because in his germ-obsessed, gun-fearing, car-fleeing neurosis, Adrian Monk is an interesting character to watch. He is funny, painfully awkward and it is very easy to watch this premiere episode and get thrilled when the underestimated detective scores a major clue and makes a giant connection because his unique vantage point affords him the ability. Adrian Monk is instantly an interesting character and Monk is a delightful mix of humorous and clever detective work that comes together quite well.

Unfortunately, it comes together in a far-too formulaic way in many respects, no more so than in the relationship between Adrian Monk and his enabling nurse, Sharona Fleming. Sharona is a single mother who finds her life absolutely dominated by caring for Monk and trying to insure that he gets reinstated. In tandem with Monk's therapist, Sharona is the truest pro-Monk force on the show. The problem, then, comes in the form of the conceits that their relationship brings out.

Here in the premiere episode, Adrian tracks down Sharona while she is on a date, angering her to the point where she quits her job as his nurse and assistant. This prompts the mayor and the police captain, Stottlemeyer, to intervene to try to protect Monk from being alone by working to hire her back. The result is a fairly canned sequence that illustrates just how helpless and disabled Monk is on his own without her aid. The problem here is that any perceptive viewer will get all that from the teaser to the episode. As Monk analyzes clues in the very first scene of the episode, he continues to return to the question of whether the oven is truly off at home and it is only Sharona who keeps him focused and redirects him effectively.

In other words, writer Andy Breckman and director Dean Parisot quite effectively show from the beginning what they degenerate into telling later on. It's a disappointing plot and character conceit that serves little purpose other than to flesh out a pilot episode to an hour nineteen minutes instead of the standard forty-three minute "hour" debut. Similarly, late in the episode a scene involving Sharona, Adrian and Sharona's son allows Monk to put together the last clues needed to crack the case in a plot-convenient obviousness that only occurs in films of this sort.

True cinephiles of the mystery/detective genre will note that the scene involving Sharona and her date is compositionally similar to what Chris Carter edited out of The X-Files's pilot episode. The treasured deleted scene to that episode has Scully out on a date to illustrate that she had a life outside the FBI and it seems that Sharona's date scene is trying to make the same point, that she wants to have a life outside of caring for Adrian Monk.

What makes this premiere episode one of the better ones on the market is the quality of the source material. The actors are all doing a pretty impressive job at establishing their characters and the world of Monk. It is a delight to see Gail O'Grady as the mayor's wife, Miranda . O'Grady is known to fans of detective shows as Donna Abandando from NYPD Blue, where she began as an extra and became a regular in the second season due to her overwhelming popularity. O'Grady here is anything but timid or reserved as she was as Abandando, delivering one of the funniest lines in the episode as she watches Monk reinsert pins into the police board.

Bitty Schram, who plays Sharona, makes a distinctive impression from the moment she first appears on screen. She has a very subtle authority to her that makes it very believable that she might be a home health care aid and have the ability to keep Adrian focused. Schram modulates well between the script-demanded compassion and impatience to create a very realistic and vital character.

But it is Tony Shalhoub, who plays Adrian Monk, who is responsible for whether or not the episode sinks or swims. Shalhoub played the chief engineer character in Galaxy Quest and there he had a reserved quality that made for a more subtle form of humor. He seems to call upon some of those same tricks, the shrug, the quiet piercing "what?!" look that he can do with his eyes, but he enhances what we've seen from him before with an even stronger physical presence. Shalhoub contorts his body so that Monk never seems to take up all that much space. Instead, he is focused, compact and walks in a way that gives the sense that he is confined. Shalhoub brings a lot of physical awkwardness to sell the role and he does it admirably.

On DVD, the premiere episode looks and sounds good, but despite the great acting, interesting characters and cripplingly predictable crime-solving plot, it is ultimately impossible for me to recommend this DVD. It's one episode, with no bonus features. I understand the principle of these pilot-episode releases, but do not believe they work. The purpose, of course, is to offer an affordable option for those considering the more expensive full-season DVD boxed set. The problem is, many viewers will watch the first episode, especially of a largely episodic series like this one appears to be, and might even enjoy it but not be intrigued enough by the mere idea that there is more out there. Monk solves a case. Okay, if you buy the DVD season boxed sets that follows, presumably he does it again and again and again. Without even a second episode to illustrate that there is something worthwhile coming up, the viewer has to assume that the repetition is going to be, well, just that. Another episode and a commentary track or featurette might have added some value to this disc that would have made it worthwhile, but as it stands it severely underuses the medium.

For other pilot episode reviews, please be sure to check out my takes on:
“Pilot” - Millennium
“The Cage” - Star Trek
“The First Episode” - Northern Exposure

5/10

For other television reviews, please visit my index page on the subject by clicking here!

© 2012, 2008 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
| | |

Our Friday Night Tradition Had A Much Rockier Start Than I Would Have Guessed: Monk - Season One

The Good: Interesting cases, Moments of humor, Performances!
The Bad: Narrative style, Unlikable characters, Not as funny as it became.
The Basics: Monk Season One is much more of a detective show than a comedy, which was a bit off-putting to a fan who came to the series late.


Not very long ago, my wife and I started watching Psych together on DVD (season four is reviewed here!). The more we went through the series, the more my wife lamented how much she missed watching Monk. As if the local gods of television heard her, one of our local broadcast channels began playing Monk in syndication on Friday nights. Watching Monk has rapidly become a Friday night tradition for her and I. But here at the outset of my Monk reviews, I must make two confessions. First, I still like Psych better. Second, because we started with episodes where Natalie was Monk’s assistant, I find I like her quite a bit more than Sharona. In fact, I am not a fan of Sharona. As a result, I was not entirely grabbed by the first season of Monk.

In fact, Monk Season One is a debut season that leaves me surprised that the show was ever picked up for anything beyond the first season. Monk falls into a category of television shows that I am not traditionally bowled over by. Like Bones, House, Pushing Daisies and many other shows, Monk is a ridiculously simple concept that has a lot of plot repetition. In this case, the simple concept is “obsessive-compulsive police detective” and the season is largely episodic in nature. As a result, former Detective Adrian Monk does not grow, develop and learn. Instead, he simply experiences the next case and the next one after that. That does not mean it is bad, but as one who likes serialized television and characters who grow and change, formula shows tend not to impress me.

Before a pile-on of comments begins, watching Monk at the beginning, there are some serious problems with the show. The first is that the show is not funny. While Adrian Monk is quirky, he often comes across as insensitive or just mean and Sharona comes across as a terrible healthcare worker. While Monk is certainly demanding, Sharona does not seem well-suited to the job of being sympathetic. Instead, she pushes Monk and Monk seems more belligerent than emotionally damaged.

As well, the formulaic nature of the episodes in the first season of Monk works against the show as well. Each episode of Monk is a murder mystery but in the first season, the perpetrator of the crime is usually revealed in the episode’s teaser. As a result, the mysteries are more about how Monk figures out how the killer murdered their victim, as opposed to who actually did the crime. This works (when it does) when the viewer cares about the protagonist, but because so many of the characters are uninteresting or unlikable, it is hard to care about the process by which Monk solves a case. Throughout the first season, I found myself screaming at the television, “Tell – insert name here – Monk suffers from OCD!” So many problems and misunderstandings in the first season could have been avoided simply by having Sharona tell people that (usually when she hands Monk a wipe after he shakes someone’s hand).

In the first season of Monk, former detective Adrian Monk is brought in to help the San Francisco Police Department, under Captain Leland Stottlemeyer, solve the murder of a mayoral candidate’s bodyguard. When a psychic finds a dead body in a car, Monk and Sharona are called in, as they are when the loathsome Dale The Whale commissions a murder from his bed. Stottlemeyer calls on Monk when one of his friends is accused of murder and Monk seems right at home when he is committed to an asylum after blacking out and entering Trudy’s (his murdered wife) old house.

Other cases have Monk matching wits with a murderer whose alibi is that he was running a heavily-monitored race and one where a billionaire seems to get his thrills by mugging people for show when he gets shot himself! A normal vacation with Sharona and her son turns into an investigation when Sharona’s son, Benji witnesses a murder. Monk also matches wits with a killer who uses an earthquake to try to get away with murder, saves Willie Nelson from jail and tries to solve a murder while on his first airplane flight!

The first season of Monk establishes the characters, but it does not develop them very well at all. For instance, almost nothing is known about Lieutenant Disher after the first season. He is Stottlemeyer’s right hand, but he does not seem particularly insightful, intelligent or even competent. While he is young, it seems odd that he would have risen to the rank of lieutenant without illustrating some initiative and intelligence of his own. Instead, he does what Stottlemeyer tells him and he usually just pals around as a recurring support character. Even Stottlemeyer lacks a strong sense of presence in the first season. He does not have an absolute trust for Monk and he does not have any distinct traits that make him interesting to watch. Even the fact that Sharona has a child seems only thrown in to enhance her otherwise un-noteworthy character.

To be fair, Tony Shaloub is excellent as Monk, even in the beginning. He seems to have a grasp on balancing a character who is both incredibly intelligent and essentially crippled from his psychological issues. Shaloub plays Monk a serious and troublingly deficient in the first season, as opposed to funny. So, for example, when Shaloub faces off against Alan Arkin’s Dale Biederbeck, the episode has a sinister undertone. Shaloub plays Monk as consistently on edge in the episode and that level of performance makes the first season bearable, if not wonderful.

On DVD, Monk Season one comes with minimal bonus features. There are a few commentary tracks and featurettes on the making of the show and season recaps, but nothing one cannot live without. Monk is clearly a show that got better (much better!) with age, but I’d opt for skipping the first season and picking the show up when it gets more refined.

For other shows that have somewhat formulaic natures, be sure to visit my reviews of:
Wonderfalls
Blackadder
Boston Legal

5/10

For other television reviews, please visit my index page on the subject by clicking here!

© 2012 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
| | |