No more Monk

2007-01-19T19:29:00.000-05:00

I really enjoyed the first episodes of Monk, but with a different writer who focused on short snappy plots instead of the interesting portrayal of Monk's character, the show went downhill.

As it happens ,I have not watched TV since late 2004 so this blog may as well be scrapped, right? Except I rather like the design of it.

pfaahh

2004-05-28T06:59:00.000-04:00

Monk is coming back on after a hiatus, with new episodes.

I really liked this show when it first aired, but I find their scheduling very annoying. They do not seem to understand that repeats are better watched after you've had a chance to forget about an episode and 13 episodes does not a devoted fan club make.

Also they appear to have dumbed down and sexed up the storylines.

test

2003-11-08T10:46:00.000-05:00

test

Reruns

2003-08-29T21:23:00.000-04:00

I watched part of the Sharona dates the deputy mayor episode again, and found it funnier and more enjyable than i did first time through. I think its because onthe first go-round, I was more focused on the plot. Second time through, I knew the plot and was free to observe and appreciate the comedic interplay between Monk and Sharona, Monk and Mrs. Chen, etc. They are very good!

Less Monk?

2003-08-17T16:48:00.000-04:00

Monk is becoming more and more disappointing. He is becoming more and more incapable. Sharona now does most of the talking. Perhaps she will become the detective, while Monk will become a gibbering fool who sits at home lining up chess pieces on a board.

Hy Conrad

2003-07-14T21:44:00.000-04:00

I have figured out what it is about Hy Conrad's episodes that troubles me. He's too facile. Take a plot - any plot-- and plop into it the stock characters from Monk. Add a couple of Monkish mannerisms -- make them extreme so the less subtle in the audience can't fail to notice -- and stir. What do you get?

Mysteries dumbed down for kids. Check out this list of credits for Mr. Conrad (he of Minute Mystery fame)

It looks as if the producers have decided this is going to be a kids show. Over at Mystery.net, on the kids/young adults page, you see a list of Puzzles, games and mystery stories for kids and teenagers to pit their wits as they figure out whodunit, including a link to Detective Club Puzzlers by Hy Conrad .
On the same page is a big USA network ad for the Monk series.

It's too bad they have to dumb it down. If their research showed that a lot of kids were watching it, why not suppose the kids in the audience are as bright as the adults?

Well, I'm going to wander on over to the USANetwork bulletin board discussion and see what the original fans of this show think of th changes. I alread kknow they dont like Randy Newman's theme song, and yearn for the Season I title them by Jeff Beal

New episodes

2003-07-12T17:35:00.000-04:00

Here's what's coming up this week:
Mon, Jul 14 8:00 PM MR. MONK GOES TO THE BALLGAME
Thu, Jul 17 9:00 PM 12 MONKEYS

The Ballgame episode also aired Friday at 10 p.m., so I have watched it already. I may watch it again Monday, as there are a couple of points I want tosatisfy myself about before making any comments.

In a recent entry, I wondered aloud why it took them so long to come up with new episodes. I guess the reason is that they couldnt get good writers. Now we have the one-minute mystery man, Hy Conrad popping out plots as fast as a cat pops kittens.
The 1-minute mystery has been done before. See Ellery Queen
Hy Conrad is all over the net posting his mystery plots. See Mystery.net (loosely based on the PBS series "Mystery!")

The Phoenix

2003-06-20T05:37:00.000-04:00

Rising from the ashes of a season and a half of re-running the same 13 episodes, Monk is finally ready to begin anew with original episodes.

"Mr. Monk Goes Back to School"is the premier episode starting off the the second season tonight at 10 p.m. (EDT) on USA Network. Monk takes a job as a substitute high school teacher to determine whether a teacher's fall from a clock tower was really a suicide.

Credits: Andy Breckman (Executive Producer/Writer), Jason Gray-Stanford ("Lieutenant Randall Disher"), David Hoberman (Executive Producer), Ted Levine ("Captain Leland Stottlemeyer"), Bitty Schram ("Sharona Fleming"), Tony Shalhoub ("Adrian Monk").

I think it has taken an uncommonly long time to come up with more episodes; I wonder why.

Experimenting with time slots...?

2003-06-06T06:22:00.000-04:00

The new season of Monk begins June 20. The USA Network, which is showing it, is apparently doing a sampling to determine the time slot in which most Monk fans are willing to watch it. So the premier episode "Mr. Monk Goes Back to School" will be shown not twice, not three times, but EIGHT TIMES between Fri.June 20 and Thursday June 26 -- at hours ranging from 11 a.m. to midnight or 1 a.m.
So which is it? kiddies or night owls?

Or maybe this has nothing to do with testing the waters... Maybe this is the early warning sign for what happens when you have 900 channels owned by five companies: they dont have 900 channels worth of stuff. So they will fall back on showing oh maybe 8-10 channels worth of stuff. More on channel ownership

Fri, June 6 10 & 12 p.m. Mr. Monk Goes to the Carnival
Fri, June 13 10 p.m. and midnight Mr. Monk and the Airplane
Fri, June 20 11:00 AM USAMovie: Monk (2-hour pilot)
Fri, June 20 10:00 PM Monk (premiere) Mr. Monk Goes Back to School
See the rest of the schedule at the USA webpage.

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR IN A TELEVISION SERIES - MUSICAL OR COMEDY - Golden Globes

2003-05-29T21:33:00.000-04:00

Eric McCormack as Will in Will& Grace, was nominated for a Golden Globe

Matt LeBlank who plays Joey Tribbiani on Friends was nominated for a Golden Globe.

Two others I'm not familiar also got a nomination in this category. But the Winner was.........................................

Tony Shaloub as Monk !
Good job, Mr. Monk!!

New Episodes!!!

2003-05-29T21:02:00.000-04:00

"New episodes of "Monk" return on Friday, June 20 at 10PM/9C."

more...

2003-04-05T07:43:00.000-05:00

We happened upon Monk last night and decided just for yucks to watch it. It was the episode with the psychic who " found" the ex-commissioner's dead wife. It turns out there were a few bits we had not seen before, maybe because we were out of the room when it happened.

We didn't change the channel mid stream. That's a good sign.

But WHEN WILL THERE BE NEW EPISODES?

2003-03-04T06:56:00.000-05:00

Get your David Morse calendar here

Monk, down; Hack up

2003-03-04T06:46:00.000-05:00

I don't watch Monk any more. Don't even know if they're still airing it. I catch Hack when I can, but that show skips, too (though, having begun last September (2002) it already has aired more episodes (17) than Monk ever had (13). What a way to run a network. Omit the new fresh material, and run the old stuff from the 70s and 80s into the ground. It won't be long now before I unsubscribe from cable and toss the tv. It's a big expense and I dont like it much.

They keep changing things!

2002-12-29T07:22:00.000-05:00

Last night I was engrossed with a Sim family, a computer simulation game that some poor fool gave my daughter for Christmas, and I hardly heard her when she called out that Hack was on tv. It had not been on Friday night at its regular time. I did watch Monk this week, however - the Airplane episode.

The Airplane episode is different from other Monk episodes, in the following ways:
a. Monk's mental illness is shown as far more destructive than usual to him and others (he had a stewardess at her wits end from repeatedly summoning her by ringing the help buzzer). Usually he is in quirks mode, harmlessly touching fence posts as he passes and wiping his hands off.
b. The Lieutanant reacts to Monk's phone calls about the possibility of a woman having been murdered inthe Airport with utter seriousness instead of writing him off as a freak. He accepts Monk's idea to the extent of having freshly laid concrete dug up on no actual evidence of a crime at all. Usually he is dismissive of Monk's perceptions and it is Capt. Stottlemeyer who credits them and follows up.
c. Monk is clearly shown to be distracted from his craziness by having a mystery to solve. This is similar to the situation of Sherlock Holmes, where he was fine if his mind was racing on a puzzle to solve, but between cases needed to dose himself with cocaine in order to feel alive. I wonder if the notion that one can be distracted from madness (activity as a drug) is validated by any psychiatric literature? I suspect there could be some validity it in, and wonder if it has evern been tested.
d. One of the secondary characters, Mr. Beech the extension cord salesman, seems fully to recognize Monk's madness, yet unlike most people, is mostly not put off by it, does not fear or avoid him. He chuckles as if the madness were merely quirkiness and Monk just another human being like many he has dealt with on the road before. Mr Beech is Buddha-like in living in the moment and in his acceptance of others as they are. An admirable character; although the writer seems to have tried to draw him as a 2-dimensional cartoon character, the stereotypical single-minded salesman, Mr. Beech becomes drawn into Monk's project and willingly assists him in his research.

Psychodrama

2002-12-13T08:04:00.000-05:00

Tonight, it's Mr Monk and the Psychic at 10:30. Kinda late, that hour -- a bit late for me, anyway.

I may invite friends over to watch Hack instead.

Hack is a disgraced cop driving a cab and doing penance and being awfully human. Read about the actor who plays Hack: David Morse

OH no!! I just read online that Hack is being preempted tonight by a Christmas thing, Robbie the Reindeer

[sigh]

2002-12-11T07:02:00.000-05:00

No Monk last week ................

Seaside Monk

2002-11-29T17:00:00.000-05:00

Tonight's Monk episode is Mr. Monk Takes a Vacation Our pal Adrian Monk is dragged off to the southern California coast for a rest. He dons a straw hat against the hot sun, but is not the sort to put on a bathing suit. His walking near the beach in hat and suit is part of the humor of this episode. Sharona and her son Benji accompany him, of course.
Benji thinks he sees a crime being committed, and for no particular reason that I can make out, is believed by Monk but not by his mother. The kid is neither an idiot nor a liar, so why wouldn't Sharona believe him? Monk believes him. You'd think that alone would be reason enough for her to trust her son -- who turns out to be correct, of course, in what he saw. Monk persists against the odds, and solves the crime.

View the schedule
Looks like in December they will begin airing at 10:30 instead of 10 p.m. That's a bit late fo rme.

Missed it

2002-11-26T06:46:00.000-05:00

I missed last week's episode. This does not bode well for the future of Monk, that an ardent fan like me would simply... forget about it.

no Monk last week... :-(

2002-11-21T05:40:00.000-05:00

There was no Monk last week. I had wondered how they would stretch 13 episodes out til next summer... The answer is, replace it with other shows, specials, etc as they come up.

We are in a race to see who will abandon ship first, me or Monk.

Writer's his own fan!

2002-11-12T23:11:00.000-05:00

Andy Breckman's Monk page

Monky business

2002-11-12T22:52:00.000-05:00

[sigh]
Re-runs. Thirteen episodes, and we're into re-runs until next summer.

I really can't write about those same 13 over and over. The friend I had invited over to watch Monk with me on Friday evenings called and asked if we were on for last Friday, and of course I said yes. But my heart wasnt in it.

Meanwhile, I have a Monk joke... er make that a monk joke.

In an ancient monastery, a new monk arrived to dedicate his life to join the others copying ancient records. The first thing he noticed was that they were copying by hand, books that had already been copied by hand.
He had to speak up.

"Forgive me, Father Justinian, but copying other copies by hand allows many chances for error. How do we know that we aren't copying some else's mistakes? Are they ever checked against the originals?"

Father Justinian was startled! No one had ever suggested that before.

"Well, that is a good point, Brother John. I will take one of these latest books down to the archive vault and study it against its original document."

He went deep into the vault where no one else was allowed to enter, and started to study. The day passed and it was getting late in the evening. The monks were getting worried abour Father Justinian. Finally one monk started to make his way through the old vault, and as he began to think he might get lost, he heard sobbing.

"Father Justinian?" he called. The sobbing was louder as he came near. He finally found the old priest sitting at a table with the new copy and the original ancient book in front of him. It was obvious that Father Justinian had been crying for a long time.

"Oh, my Lord," sobbed Father Justinian, "the word is 'celebrate'!!"

-- From Profusions of Puns, Gaggles of Groaners (submitted by Bruce H G Calder )

Millionaire jogger

2002-11-01T10:01:00.000-05:00

Last week was a repeat, the Millionaire Jogger in which an old fraternity prank is updated. Actually I thought the plot was kind of dumb. The idea of a guy being made to look brave in front of his date fails because it assumes that either a) the woman dating him wont like him if he's not brave/strong enough to foil an attacker or b) if a) is true she won't sooner or later notice he's a wimp and dump him.
I guess it's a guy thing, hm? Why tout this guy thing on a show I'd bet far more women than men like.

Mr. Monk and the Airplane

2002-10-21T06:29:00.000-04:00

Friday night we watched the episode in which Monk, very much against his better judgement, goes on an airplane with Sharona. While there he notices enough disparate things to conclude a murder must have occurred in the airport and calls Lt. Disher (who is unusually cooperative: is this a new trend?) to investigate. Disher totally believes Monk and does what he is told, even to the extent of digging up freshly laid concrete without a court order.

Luckily, there is a body below.

In reviewing the episode on the USA website, I noticed a little flaw.

Monk soon becomes convinced that one of his fellow passengers - the Frenchman, Stephan Chabrol - has just killed his wife, after noticing that Stephan's "new" wife is at least two inches taller than the woman he saw Stephan kissing earlier.

Actually, what he noticed was that in the first kiss the woman was standing on tiptoe and in the second kiss, she was flatfooted and the husband not bending down.

How did he know the man was not two inches shorter? Or, could she not have changed her shoes? (she didn't, but that issue is not even addressed). The audience assumes right along with Monk that it is the woman who has changed, but we, at least, have the excuse that we had a preview of the action, where wife #2 enters the ladies room and kills wife#1.

Re. technique: I am concluding that the 'solution' to a mystery is provided to the audience in those cases where it is somewhat farfetched, otherwise we wouldn't believe it, and then we watch the detective find out about it.
If the solution is credible, knowing in advance would bore us.

character or plot?

2002-10-17T22:32:00.000-04:00

Do you think the purpose of the story is the plot? I've read in email lists complaints that they give up the answer early on and we get to watch Monk and the cops struggle with it.

I think that's their way of letting you know the puzzle is not the point. Maybe it's really a comedy show. There are some great lines.

It's habit-forming

2002-10-17T05:05:00.000-04:00

This program, Monk, is kind of habit forming.I have a friend who doesn't have cable (do you know anybody who doesn't have cable?? that's the kind of friends I have) who came over two weeks ago to watch Monk with me and is ready to come back for the next one. (She was out of town last week and missed the Willie Nelson episode!)

I really like Monk, more than most other programs I see on TV. It's the only one at present that I actually look forward to seeing. More often, I opt not to watch tv at all --I'd rather make web pages! hehe. But, there have been only a few programs I enjoy enough actually to turn the television on to view.

Some other television shows I have liked recently (in the past oh, say five years or more) are DueSouth and Northern Exposure. And ... hm, I'm sure there was one more, but I can't recall it.

2002-10-16T17:31:00.000-04:00

I have been fritzing around with the image and the style sheet so long I forget why I wanted to do this darn blog! I still need to put up pageswhere the other links go.
More later, I have to run and meet some friends.

2002-10-14T21:45:00.000-04:00

test post

More on Monk

No more Monk

test

Reruns

Less Monk?

Hy Conrad

New episodes

The Phoenix

Experimenting with time slots...?

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR IN A TELEVISION SERIES - MUSICAL OR COMEDY - Golden Globes

New Episodes!!!

more...

Monk, down; Hack up

They keep changing things!

Psychodrama

[sigh]

Seaside Monk

Missed it

no Monk last week... :-(

Writer's his own fan!

Monky business

Millionaire jogger

Mr. Monk and the Airplane

character or plot?

It's habit-forming