The "Monk" (TV show) appreciation thread

Here's a place for all Monk fans on the forum to unite.

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Last night I revisited a few episodes from Season 5:

"Mr. Monk and the Garbage Strike"
"Mr. Monk Gets a New Shrink"
"Mr. Monk Is At Your Service"

Also in Season 5: "Mr. Monk and the Actor" with Stanley Tucci.

Classic stuff.

I think "Garbage Strike" may be my favorite episode in the entire series.

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Great show and each season is on netfix.

My favorite Monk phobia: fear of milk

 

In "At Your Service" he discovers a fear of frogs and has hard time placing it on his list of phobias (which Natalie maintains). If my memory is not failing me now, he decides frogs shall be placed between milk and soccer riots on the list.

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Great

I am not sure I saw that one, do you know what season it is from?

 

Season 5.

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great show. was sad to see it go but i guess it ran it's course.

 

It was a show that me and my teenaged boys loved. We still wtch episodes now and then on Netflix.

 

There's a Monk movie apparently filming this summer for a Christmastime airing on USA. Not sure if Bitty Schram will be in it--the details in the article I read a couple months ago were sketchy. Maybe they'll bring her back as Randy's wife, though I have to say I'm not sure why the writers thought Randy and Sharona together made any sense.

After not having seen the show in years, I recently caught up on the Natalie years via DVD. I liked both Natalie and Sharona pretty equally. Traylor Howard had a tough task replacing an established co-star and I thought she succeeded admirably.

 

The "Monk" books are also great. Lee Goldberg, who contributed some episodes of the series, wrote them and they are just like watching the show, but in convenient book form.

And Natalie is even sexier between the pages (the books are written from her POV).

Lee told me/us on Twitter that Randy will return in the new books.

They are fun reads.

 

I thought Traylor Howard did a great job too. They did right by making her just different enough (and making her more of an assistant than a nurse). I thought Bitty played Sharona a bit too mean towards Monk at times (or at least that's how she was written) and maybe it was because Sharona was his nurse. Natalie had a more pleasant approach to making Monk face, or work around, his issues. She was still firm towards Monk, but was much less condescending about it.

It was looking back at the earlier episodes after getting used to Natalie, that I noticed how mean Sharona sounded sometimes. Not that Monk didn't dish it out too at times.

 

Two words: Ted Levine.

 

Here's an article about the upcoming movie (don't click if you don't want to know the premise):

http://screenrant.com/monk-tv-movie-aco-156298/

Off the top of my head, a few of my favorite episodes are S2's "Mr. Monk and the Three Pies" (John Turturro did a great job playing Monk's housebound brother, Ambrose), S5's "Mr. Monk Meets His Dad" (played by Carla's sleazy ex-husband, Nick, on Cheers), and the episode near the end when Natalie met Sharona.

For those interested, here's a Monk episode guide:

http://epguides.com/Monk/

One other thing for now: while Hector Elizondo is a fine actor, I thought Stanley Kamel owned the role of Monk's therapist. Not sure what they could've done upon Kamel's death after S6, but I never thought that Elizondo really fit in.

 

I loved watching Monk, and still do some reruns once in a while while doing my workouts.

I like the idea of a tv movie or two, but trying to revive the series may not be the best idea. I thought that with Randy and Sharona getting together and moving, Randy getting a new job...there was potential for some kind of spinoff.

 

I have all eight seasons on DVD to watch at my leisure...one of the great entertainment joys of my life is to cherry-pick my favorite episodes for a 3 hour "Monk" night marathon once or twice a month, usually 4 episodes per viewing. Tony Shaloub and company did such great work throughout the run of the series that I usually pick from multiple seasons. When the series finale aired, I wept from the realization that several of my favorite television characters wouldn't be delivering new stories any more, but was more than compensated for by the satisfying way Adrian finally solved and avenged Trudy's murder and found her daughter. This remains my favorite television show of the past two decades, and probably will be for many more years to come.

 

If anyone wants to replace their bulky DVD season sets of the Natalie years, slim packs of seasons four through eight are now available to match the first three seasons already out there.

Haven't heard anything new about that Monk movie. It's getting pretty close to Christmastime for there not to be any updated info. Maybe it's off...

 

Another fan of the show although it was inconsistently written at times. I look forward to the movie and my guess is that it will still be shown in December. USA is good at not promoting their new programs early and instead going with the late push right before airdate.

 

I read that the movie isn't going ahead because of costs (around $6 million budget) and also because the creators couldn't agree on a storyline.
But the series was excellent and IMO never jumped the shark. Great writing, acting and directing and the final episode wrapped things up nicely.

 

.....also a big fan of Monk.
Seemed to end at about the right time as I could see it easily "Jumping The Shark" as series usually do when they hang around too long.

 

Well, the show ended only three years ago, so they still have time to do the movie down the road if everything lines up.

 

My entire family is addicted to this show. In fact the wife and kids more so than me.
When I bought the DVD sets (on sale), they would just devour them with me saying, "what Monk again!?". after the 3rd or 4th epsiode for the day!

But we are on a hiatus right now.

I was surprised so many of my friends did not know anything about this show when I mentioned it to them.

-- Sanjay

 

I have all the seasons on DVD and am currently rewatching season 2. I aways liked the episode "Mr Monk goes back to school." Andrew McCarthy was really good as the smarmy teacher. Also David Rasche from Sledgehammer was in it.

 

Ya, I been finding the books at the library, pretty good story lines I say! I sure do miss new episodes, sad it went off the air. But even some of the broadcast tv stations are airing the series these days...in Chicago it is ch 38 ION on Sundays, also ch 50 on Fridays.

 

Yeah, last weekend I caught the tail end of "Mr. Monk and the Three Pies" (I think that's the episode title) on one of those stations. One of my favorite Monk episodes.

 

great show,love when the play up his Cheapness ,too bad that after the first couple seasons they cut the Budget ,and filming in SF is but a Memory

 

Just started re-watching Monk from S1 - has got to be one of the funniest shows of all time and these days it seems to be forgotten. Looking forward to watching the entire series especially as our local channel stuffed it around big time during its original run and so I haven't seen the episodes from about half way through season 4. Last night was Monk at the carnival - gold. Monk's worst nightmare.

Also forgot how hot Sharona is. A shame she left although I like Natalie as well.