TV: Monk

This week's season premiere of Monk has given me some hope that all is not yet lost. I'm not thrilled that Monk's assistant Sharona, played by Bitty Schram, has been written out of the show; she was a great character, and a large part of why the show worked so well. And word is that Schram's departure from the show was not on the most amicable of terms. (It's always a shame when I hear about behind the scenes conflict on shows I like; it can make the characters on-screen less likeable. This goes all the way back to when I was a kid, and read about strife amongst the child stars on Diff'rent Strokes. They're not really a big happy family?? It broke my widdle heart.)

But I've always liked Traylor Howard, who is replacing her. I liked her on Boston Common, I liked her on Two Guys, a Girl, and a Pizza Place -- yes, dammit, I sincerely liked that show! -- and I liked her on Bram & Alice. Wait, no I didn't. That show was wretched. But I like her, is the point. And judging from her first appearance, she'll do just fine. She's a little flat in places, and her character is a little too jaded -- she kills a guy in this episode, stabs him right in the heart with a pair of scissors, a fairly traumatic experience, I would think, and she seems to have shaken it off by the second commercial break -- but I think she'll fit right in to Monk's little world.

And Monk, the character, appears to be back on track. Too often last season, the writers had Monk acting less like a genius detective riddled with phobias and compulsions, and more like a blithering idiot. The show is much more enjoyable, and believable, when Monk is allowed to be competent and smart, despite being handicapped by his mental tics. That's where Tony Shalhoub is at his best, I think -- playing smart.

Good start for the new season -- or, to be technical, the second half of the third season. I hate when shows split up the season like that. South Park does the same thing. A normal TV season does not have a five month break between episodes!

TV: It's a bungle out there

Adrian Monk has always been quirky, fearful, hamstrung by his neuroses. But when did he become so damn stupid?

In the two episodes I've seen of the new season of Monk, Tony Shalhoub's title character, as well as his supporting cast, have taken to acting like complete idiots for the sake of a joke. In the season premiere, a gag about Monk trying to say something to Capt. Stottlemeyer (Ted Levine), but being interrupted by a jackhammer, went on forever. He must've started, and been interrupted, a good 30 times. Wouldn't a person with a brain in his head try to go inside to speak? Or wouldn't Stottlemeyer get the gist of what Monk was saying (it was something extremely simple, like, "Maybe we should talk to him"), and say, "I get it, let's go"? No. They both stand there for minutes on end, playing out this pathetic scene that could only happen between two characters who are feeble in the head.

On the most recent episode, a man died inside a panic room, and a hole was cut inside the door to get to him. When Monk later accidentally gets locked in the panic room, he... well, he panics. But in an incredibly stupid fashion. While he's wailing and crying for help, Stottlemeyer is looking at him through the hole, shouting instructions at Monk on how to reopen the door. Monk, of course, acts as though he can't see or hear Stottlemeyer, because apparently the writers think that's "funny". It was an interminable vaudeville performed by an idiot.

In the same episode... man, I don't know where to begin. In the same episode, the murder victim's pet chimpanzee has been taken into custody as the prime suspect, and Capt. Stottlemeyer has decided to lock himself in a room with the chimp (to recreate the scene of the crime), give the chimp a gun, and see if it has the manual dexterity to actually pull the trigger. And that's not even the stupid part. Stupid part #1: the Captain's assistant, Lt. Disher, was supposed to give the Captain an unloaded gun to use, but he gave him a loaded gun by mistake. What policeman (outside of Chief Wiggum) is that careless about firearms? Stupid part #2, Stottlemeyer accepts Disher's word on the gun being unloaded, neither checking for himself, nor realizing the weight of the gun indicates it's loaded. Relatively minor, but it's an incredibly unrealistic portrayal of a policeman's attention to gun safety. But stupid part #3, the really stupid part, is when Disher realizes his mistake. He rushes to warn the Captain... but the Captain refuses to listen to him, or unlock the door, because he's involved with an extremely extended and totally unfunny pantomime, trying to incite the chimp into pulling the trigger. I mean, if you're a cop, and another cop is screaming and pounding on the door, don't you think that would set off a little alarm in your head? Maybe you're not going to immediately leap to the conclusion, "This monkey has a loaded gun," because you'd have to be an idiot to be in a situation in the first place where that phrase would ever be relevant. But wouldn't you think that something might require your immediate attention, and you should maybe stop screwing around and find out what it is?

Idiots, all of them.

This show is losing a lot of goodwill from me. Monk is about a brilliant man who is handicapped by his mental tics, not a stupid man who just has to wash his hands a lot. The writers need to get back on the ball, pronto.