Monk (TV series)

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Template:Infobox television Monk is a television show about an obsessive-compulsive detective named Adrian Monk (played by actor Tony Shalhoub). The show, which has recently finished its fourth season, debuted in 2002 and is produced by the USA Network. Created by Andy Breckman, writer of Rat Race, the critically acclaimed basic cable series has been a popular hit and won several major awards (see below). The show is also credited with significantly raising USA Network's profile. Monk airs Friday nights at 10 PM EST.

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Series overview

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

Adrian Monk, graduate of University of California, Berkeley, was originally a detective of the San Francisco Police Department. Due to an unusual upbringing (the scope of which is being slowly revealed both in flashbacks and the present), Monk grew up with a variety of quirks and tics. After the murder of his wife, Trudy, and his inability to solve it (the only case in his career Monk has never been able to solve), Monk suffered a nervous breakdown, and his eccentricities manifested as an extreme case of obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD). (Although he suffered from OCD his whole life, while Trudy was still living, his symptoms were largely under control.) After Trudy's death, Monk's life spun out of control and he ended up losing his badge. He refused to leave his house for three years. After these three years in seclusion, Monk began to perform consulting work for the department, helping the police solve difficult cases. Police Captain Leland Stottlemeyer (Ted Levine) and Lieutenant Randall "Randy" Disher (Jason Gray-Stanford), call on and spar with Monk when they have a case they can't crack. Stottlemeyer is often infuriated with Monk's disorder, but respects his amazing observational abilities, as does Disher. Monk continues to search for information about his wife's death as he works on other cases with both Leland and Randy aiding him.

Monk's personal nurse, Sharona Fleming (Bitty Schram), helped get him back on his feet. Once, Sharona's son Benjy (Kane Ritchotte) helped Monk with a case, albeit unintentionally. Bitty Schram left the show during the third season due to "creative differences" and most likely, a contract dispute. Traylor Howard plays Monk's new assistant, Natalie Teeger. Much like Sharona, Natalie is a single mother and has a daughter about the same age as Benjy named Julie (Emmy Clarke).

Monk's truly obsessive attention to detail allows him to spot tiny discrepancies, find patterns, and make connections that everyone else in the investigations miss. He notices things such as the absence of a red pen (the color used to write a purported suicide note) in a victim's apartment, which tells him that someone else wrote the note. The pilot episode, "Mr. Monk and the Candidate," contains a prime example of Monk's photographic memory: He glances at a board with hundreds of colored pins, and after accidentally knocking them out, places them all back perfectly within five minutes. However, it is not necessary for him to see evidence to solve a murder. One such example of this is the time that he solved a very old murder, in which the wife of a caretaker for a museum exhibit that contained some of the world's first handcuffs is found murdered with her hands cut off. Monk deduces that the caretaker had restrained her with the handcuffs, but because the keys for the handcuffs were missing, had to cut her hands off to return the handcuffs to the exhibit as not to raise suspicion.

Little is done to treat Monk's OCD. While he does conduct talk therapy with his psychiatrist, the doctor does little to help Monk with his OCD. For example, SSRI medication, which is commonly used by psychiatrists to treat OCD, is never prescribed. This is partially due to Monk's aversion to medication and was covered in "Mr. Monk Takes His Medicine" in which he took the drugs, causing his personality to be changed to the point where he was no longer effective as a detective. Instead of solving murders, Monk decided that flashy sports cars and visually loud Hawaiian shirts were more his thing in that episode. He also referred to himself as "The Monk" and became so obnoxious that no one was able to stand him. In the end, Monk throws out his meds so that "The Monk" will never surface again and he can continue to be Adrian.

Monk's mental and emotional problems extend beyond the boundaries of obsessive-compulsive disorder; he also suffers from a variety of crippling phobias, such as acrophobia (fear of heights), claustrophobia (fear of confined spaces), lactophobia (fear of milk), ophidiophobia (fear of snakes) and mysophobia (fear of dirt), mycophobia (fear of mushrooms), and many others. One of his worst traits is that he has difficulty relating to other people, primarily because of his eccentricities stemming from his upbringing. But as the show progresses, Monk has learned to relate more to people like Leland and Natalie.

In "Mr. Monk and the Three Pies", the viewers are introduced to Monk's brother Ambrose (John Turturro), who is more intelligent than Adrian, but has been confined to his house for many years due to crippling agoraphobia. The character is based on Mycroft Holmes, the older and smarter brother of Sherlock Holmes. It is mentioned that Ambrose is fluent in many different languages and writes appliance instruction booklets for a living. This job is perfect for him as it does not require Ambrose to ever leave his house. Ambrose also is waiting for his and Adrian's father to return, making their father dinner every night and saving every single bit of mail delivered to the house. When Ambrose is first introduced Adrian is still holding a grudge against him for not attending Trudy's funeral or even calling after Trudy died. Later it is revealed that Ambrose blames himself for Trudy's death and could not bear to talk to Adrian after he (Ambrose) found out that she had died due to a car bomb. (see next paragraph)

Trudy was murdered with a car bomb in 1997 after leaving a drug store where she bought cough syrup for Ambrose. The viewer learns at the end of the second season that the bomb was built by a New York criminal named Warrick Tennyson. Dale "the Whale" Beiderbeck, a 900-pound white-collar criminal whom Monk had previously incarcerated for his involvement in a murder plot, tells him about Tennyson in "Mr. Monk Goes to Jail" in exchange for Monk negotiating to get Dale a window in his prison cell. The episode was the final episode of the second season and resulted in the series' only cliffhanger thus far. In the third season premiere, Monk finds Tennyson, who is dying in a hospital of heart disease. Monk is permitted to interrogate Tennyson, who admitted at the end of "Mr. Monk Takes Manhattan" that he was paid $2000 to build the bomb by an unknown six-fingered man who he met once in a parking garage. After learning this, Monk, in a rare instance of showing emotions other than fear or anxiety, turns off Tennyson's morphine drip so that he will die in agony. After a few moments, Monk relents and turns it back on, not because he wants to, but because he knows that his actions, however justified they may have been, would have disappointed Trudy because they would have caused pain.

The show is widely acclaimed for its excellent guest stars, which in addition to Turturro have included Kevin Nealon, Malcolm McDowell, Olek Krupa, Sarah Silverman, Tim Daly, Willie Nelson, Carmen Electra, Jason Alexander, KoЯn, James Brolin, Danny Bonaduce, Tim Curry, Nicole Sullivan,and Brooke Burke.

Although set in San Francisco and its area, Monk is actually for the most part shot in Canada, with the exceptions of occasional exteriors featuring city landmarks. The pilot episode was shot in Toronto, Ontario, and the subsequent episodes have been shot in the Vancouver, British Columbia area.

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Series history

The original two hour pilot was commissioned by ABC, originally as a vehicle for Michael Richards, who dropped out after reading the script for the pilot. Afterward, they weren't certain about the series and handed it off to USA Network. As part of the deal, ABC got the right to air repeats of the series after the episodes ran on USA. ABC used some episodes to fill in its summer schedule and got respectable ratings. Technically, the deal is still in place, but with USA Network being bought by NBC/Universal, the odds of episodes showing up on broadcast TV are very slim.

Sharona left in the middle of the third season; the explanation given for her absence was that she remarried her ex-husband and moved back to the East Coast. Although, in numerous episodes her ex-husband was portrayed as a deadbeat who never kept up on child support, and the fact that she would remarry him was considered highly unlikely by many fans. She was replaced by Natalie, another single mother (with a daughter instead of a son) who worked as a barmaid before becoming Monk's assistant. She is also a recovering gambler who lived in Las Vegas for two years. Her late husband was a Navy pilot shot down over Kosovo, and was accused of being a coward when he panicked and left with the crew's radios and other supplies. Natalie maintains a tough exterior to make sure her daughter is strong enough to handle whatever facts come out. Just before his last flight, the husband gave his daughter a goldfish dubbed Mr. Henry. Natalie has been substituting the fish for years, providing the illusion that the fish is the same one to help her daughter cope.

The show echoes writer/producer Andy Breckman in one respect, since he's married to Beth Landau, a documentary filmmaker. This is very similar to Captain Stottlemeyer (Ted Levine) who is married to Karen Stottlemeyer (Glenne Headly), also a documentary filmmaker.

Season 4 premiered Friday July 8 2005 at 10 PM Eastern time. Per the show's custom, roughly half of the season's episodes aired during the summer. A holiday special aired on December 2, 2005, with the remaining episodes airing from January to March 2006.

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Characters

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.
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Main characters

  • Adrian Monk (Tony Shalhoub) The protagonist of the series, a former homicide detective whose obsessive compulsive disorder interfered with his job, resulting in a still-current suspension. He is still mourning the loss of his wife Trudy who was murdered in 1997. He has not yet fully solved the case.
  • Sharona Fleming (Bitty Schram) (2002–2004) Adrian's former personal nurse and assistant. Hired by Stottlemeyer, she helped Adrian get back on his feet, and out of his house, during his 3 1/2 year slump. She remarried her ex-husband and moved back to New Jersey.
  • Natalie Teeger (Traylor Howard) (2004–present) Adrian's new assistant after Sharona left. Feisty and loyal, she shares the same compassion with Monk since she herself is a widow. In a dream, Monk is advised by Trudy that he should hire back Natalie, whom he just fired, when she helps save his life (in Mr. Monk vs. The Cobra).
  • Captain Leland Stottlemeyer (Ted Levine) Police Captain and Adrian's former watch commander. Although he is a decorated and respected officer, he knows that he will never be as great as Adrian at solving difficult crimes. This has led to a certain degree of tension between the two, notwithstanding Stottlemeyer's exasperation with some of Monk's more extreme eccentricities.
  • Lieutenant Randy Disher (Jason Gray-Stanford) Stottlemeyer's loyal yet sometimes overconfident and less-than-brilliant assistant, the green 'Randy' is a favorite character of many fans of the tv show.
  • Trudy Monk (Stellina Rusich seasons one and two, Melora Hardin seasons three and four) The late wife of Adrian. Often mentioned and sometimes portrayed, her death caused Adrian's disorder and fears to get out of control. Clues about her death are gradually given throughout the series.
  • Dr. Charles Kroger (Stanley Kamel) Adrian's kind and sympathetic psychiatrist. He tries to help Monk work through his issues so he can be reinstated to the police department.
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Secondary characters

  • Benjy Fleming (Kane Ritchotte during pilot episode and second and third seasons, Max Morrow during first season.) Sharona's son. Often uses Adrian and his skills as a "toy."
  • Julie Teeger (Emmy Clarke) Natalie's daughter. She shares many of her mother's irritations with Adrian.
  • Ambrose Monk (John Turturro) Brother of Adrian. He's smarter than Adrian, but suffers from agoraphobia. He has appeared in two episodes and has a romantic interest in Natalie. He blames himself for Trudy's death because she was buying him cough medicine when her car was blown up.
  • Karen Stottlemeyer (Glenne Headly) Environmentally-conscious wife of Leland and mother of their two children. A documentary filmmaker whose artistic pursuits frequently belittle and sometimes frustrate her husband, she has often played a crucial role in her four episodes regarding a case. In "Mr. Monk and the Captain's Marriage," a fed-up Karen files for divorce, much to the surprise and hurt of Leland.
  • Dale "the Whale" Beiderbeck (Adam Arkin, Tim Curry) The series' most significant criminal, after the Six-Fingered Man. He appears in two episodes, and gives Adrian the name of the man who built the bomb which killed Trudy. Dale had been engaged in a year-long legal battle with Trudy within three years of her death because she called him "The Genghis Khan of finance." Dale is called "the Whale" because he is extremely heavy (around 800-900 lbs.) and cannot leave his bed. Strongly hated by Monk.
  • Six-Fingered Man (Frank) The mysterious man who hired Warrick Tennyson to build a bomb to kill Trudy. All that is known about him for sure is that he has six digits on his right hand, met Tennyson in a parking garage, and had a reason to kill Trudy.
  • Warrick Tennyson (Frank Collison) He was hired by the Six-Fingered Man to manufacture the car bomb which killed Trudy. Adrian goes to New York City to find him after receiving a tip from Dale the Whale. Tennyson was unable to identify the Six-Fingered Man, and died of heart disease and liver failure shortly after being found by Adrian.
  • Harold J. Krenshaw (Tim Bagley) Another patient of Dr. Kroger's, Harold and Adrian Monk have an ongoing feud that begins the minute they see each other. Both are similar though in phobias and mannerisms, although Harold is antagonistic. Defeated Natalie Teeger for the San Francisco 5th district school board.
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Monk's phobias

In order of severity, from most to least, Monk's "Top Eleven List" of his most severe phobias are:

His "lesser" fears are:

Oddly enough, he is not usually afraid of blood.

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DVD Releases

DVD Name
Release dates
Region 1
Region 2
Region 4
The Complete 1st Season June 15 2004 December 27 2004 January 20 2005
The Complete 2nd Season January 11 2005 July 18 2005 September 19 2005
The Complete 3rd Season July 5 2005 February 27 2006 March 7 2006
The Complete 4th Season June 27 2006 N/A N/A
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Awards and nominations

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Emmy Awards

  • 2003 award for outstanding lead actor in a comedy series (Tony Shalhoub)
  • 2003 award for outstanding main title theme music (Jeff Beal) (WHOAW)
  • 2004 nominations for outstanding lead actor in a comedy series (Tony Shalhoub)
  • 2004 award for outstanding guest actor in a comedy series (John Turturro)
  • 2004 award for outstanding main title theme music ("It's a Jungle Out There" by Randy Newman)
  • 2004 nomination for outstanding casting for a comedy series
  • 2005 nomination for outstanding directing for a comedy series
  • 2005 award for outstanding lead actor in a comedy series (Tony Shalhoub)
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Golden Globes

  • 2003 award for best performance by an actor in a television series - musical or comedy (Tony Shalhoub)
  • 2004 nomination for best television series - musical or comedy
  • 2004 nomination for best performance by an actor in a television series - musical or comedy (Tony Shalhoub)
  • 2004 nomination for best performance by an actress in a television series - musical or comedy (Bitty Schram)
  • 2005 nomination for best performance by an actor in a television series - musical or comedy (Tony Shalhoub)
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Screen Actors Guild

  • 2003 nomination for outstanding performance by a male actor in a comedy series (Tony Shalhoub)
  • 2004 award for outstanding performance by a male actor in a comedy series (Tony Shalhoub)
  • 2005 award for outstanding performance by a male actor in a comedy series (Tony Shalhoub)
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Edgar Award

  • 2003 nomination for best television episode teleplay ("Mr. Monk Takes a Vacation", Teleplay by Hy Conrad)
  • 2004 nomination for best television episode teleplay ("Mr. Monk and the 12th Man", Teleplay by Michael Angeli)
  • 2004 nomination for best television episode teleplay ("Mr. Monk and the Very, Very Old Man", Teleplay by Daniel Dratch)
  • 2005 nomination for best television episode teleplay ("Mr. Monk and the Girl Who Cried Wolf", Teleplay by Hy Conrad)
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Monk in other countries

The series has been exported to and dubbed in many countries, including:

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Reruns/syndication

  • Universal HD (United States)
  • In Australia, reruns of the show are featured on the TV1 channel on the Foxtel/Austar/Optus TV cable platforms.
  • In the UK, Monk was first shown on BBC Two and has since been rerun on both BBC One and the Hallmark Channel. It was shown every weekday on BBC One as part of the daytime schedule, in a slot previously occupied by shows such as Murder, She Wrote and Diagnosis: Murder. Season 3 of Monk ended 19 April 2006 on BBC One and has now been replaced with reruns of Murder, She Wrote. It has not been indicated when or if Monk will return to the BBC for season 4, which is currently being shown on US television networks.
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Trivia

  • In addition to a rapidly growing DVD collection, the show also has a soundtrack CD that features the original music score.
  • The first detective novel based on the series has been released on January 3, 2006 and is entitled "Mr. Monk Goes to the Firehouse," in which Monk is having his house fumigated. Accepting an invite by Natalie, Monk stays at her house but inevitably, does not find the house to be up to his obsessive standards. The plot follows Monk trying to investigate how a beloved firehouse dog died on the same night as a fatal house fire. The story is told by Natalie in a first person perspective. A second novel, "Mr. Monk Goes to Hawaii," is planned for release in July 2006, as well as three more after that, which will be published through July 2008.
  • Tim Daly, Tony Shalhoub's former co-star from Wings, makes a cameo appearance in the episode "Mr. Monk and the Airplane."
  • The episode "Mr. Monk and the Big Reward" concerns itself with Monk not having enough work and Natalie trying to get the police to put him on retainer. The episode ends with Captain Stottlemeyer telling Monk that the city has decided to guarantee him sixteen murders a year for two years. This is a reflexive reference to USA Network's announcement that Monk had been renewed for two years at sixteen episodes per year.
  • One of the running jokes of the show is how Monk is almost never described as having OCD. Sometimes, characters go out of their way not to mention it, such as an episode where Monk shakes the hand of two white women, then a black man, then wipes. This is taken as evidence of racism. Instead of simply explaining his disorder, Monk and Sharona simply stare at each other briefly, mouths open. He has also been called "particular" and "persnickety" by Natalie.
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See also

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External links

Template:Wikiquote

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Sources

fr:Monk it:Detective Monk ja:名探偵モンク pl:Detektyw Monk pt:Monk zh:神探阿蒙

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