Who else loved the “theme song” stuff? Mr. S and I laughed our asses off!
(For the record, I’m a huge Randy Newman fan and I actually like the new song. But the old one was cute too, and seeing as how it won an Emmy, it seems only a fair compromise to keep Randy’s song as the main theme and Jeff Beal’s instrumental as the closing theme. Let’s see what they do next week – will this be a one-time-only thing or a permanent fix? I hope the latter.)
Goddammit, I was just about to mention this! It was hilarious!
It’s the little things that make this show so great, imo. 
I was hoping that we’d get to hear the old theme and was pleasantly surprised at the end; I too hope that it’s a permanent change (the old theme as the closing tune). I liked how the guy in the bar was getting free shots of the $20 whiskey because Monk couldn’t stand it if the liquid in the bottles wasn’t even–and he asked for a double water!
This was one of my Mom’s favorite shows so it always makes me think of her when I’m watching it.
Decent episode; the “Theme song” bit was great.
The mystery was, as is too often the case, pedestrian (when you can name the killer before the opening credits, it’s not much of a mystery), but Monk’s character kept it watchable. The big problem is that his personality tics are becoming harder and harder to dramatize without repeating (though I liked the idea of him as a continuity checker for the TV show).
I liked it much better last week when we saw some depth to the characters.
And what was the point of the dig at CSI? It’s one thing to put the actor in a show like it, but to imply CSI was scientific nonsense or didn’t get police procedure correct is stupid. Whatever you think about CSI, it’s procedure has never been seriously questioned (other than the fact that the lab tests take longer than as portrayed in the show).
Most of the time Monk is more of a howdunit or whydunit than a whodunit. We all knew the actor did it, but the point was how did he do it when he was supposedly standing in the front yard with reporters when she was killed? Last week, we knew the husband did it… the mystery was, what in the hell was he looking for in the pies?
I thought maybe the forensic stuff was more poking fun at themselves. There are next to no forensics on this show. There might be a “Testing shows the bullet matches the gun” once in a while, but that’s about it.
I haven’t seen CSI, so I can’t comment on that aspect of the forensics jokes. But I howled at the metal detector used as a “spectroscope” that could determine on the spot that a fiber was manufactured in Bolivia.
As far as I’m concerned, the only thing wrong with Monk is that the seasons are way too short.
Oh, and kudos to the Doper (I forget who) who changed his sig to “I’d like permission to search your pie.” Don’t make me say that again!
I liked the “plot” of the CSI-esque they were visiting…the one where the murder weapon was a bullet made out of frozen blood! Exactly the sort of dumb plot twist those types of shows rely on.
I also liked the theme song reference, but Monk has a lot of self-referential plot points, and I hope they don’t start overdoing it.
–“I’m smokin’ THE TRUTH, man!” – Adrian Monk
I thought the digs at the CSI-type shows were hysterical. Especially the Asian actor’s superserious behavior with the “Spectrometer.”
First episode where I was able to tell my SO who the murderer was, and how he did it, before the opening credits came on. And I was right.
Still…and that is what is so cool about Monk…the show was great. We laughed out loud at him buying the $20 shots. And him being a continuity person on a set was great. This show is so much more than just solving the murder. I agree with the problem that this “series” is usually just a few episodes. I think the first two seasons would fill up only half a DVD.
I don’t know if they will do it, but there could be some potential with that Monk Stalker…having created a website, etc. about him. She could be a fun addition to the cast…sort of the lurker who finds things and brings them to Monk.
But the problem with the actor episode, at least for me, was that I had the howdunit pretty much figured out in the first 5 minutes. This might be because of its similarity to a previous episode:
The one about Sharona’s sister in the play.
Of course the show was still entertaining in spite of it because of the characters.
Some of the plots have seemed so farfetched to me that I’ve sometimes wondered if at least some of the episodes aren’t intended to be parodies of bad plot-hole ridden seventies detective shows.
But… some of mysteries may be to easy to figure out and some of the plots may be farfetched but I’ve never seen a bad episode.
Like others, I had the mystery figured out quickly (though the explanation of where the scream came from took a while to come up), but the show is still damn entertaining.
My favorite bit in this episode was the throwaway moment where Sharona said to Monk, “I gotta be the victim again? Man, you must really enjoy pretending to shoot me and stab me.” Cracked me up.
And yeah, last week’s episode with the housebound brother was great. Surprisingly moving for a show so determinedly lightweight.
Oh, yea, the show with the brother was just amazingly good, very touching.
I’m looking forward to next week’s, if only for Tony Shaloub yelling, “I’m smokin’ the TRUTH, MAN!”
I’ve just begun watching the show in the last two weeks, basically because I forgot if the Kia girl was on last week or this week.
Not a bad show. It’s odd watching him act without an accent, though. And the pie line cracked me up, too.
The camera shots of the bullet entering the prostitute was pure CSI, But I think that they were poking fun at the whole genre of forensics shows, all the way back to Quincy.
I saw the Asian dude as a poke at Sam–He and Quincy bring the evidence to Monahan. Sam explains a detail of the findings in very technical terms. Monahan says something sarcastic like “In English, please?” and Quincy explains in laymans terms. Then they all go down to Danny’s and drink $20 shots of scotch. And the fiber being Bolivian? Also totally Quincy. They were always finding a grain of pollen that could have only come from one particular high desert microclimate in one week of the year…
Then you didn’t have it figured out, did you?
Sorry,
Okay, show of hands…who didn’t notice the theme song had changed?
(raises hand)
I was in pretty much the same situation as Cervaise. I knew what had happened but I didn’t know where the scream came from exactly. As soon as Disher turned on the stereo and the volume was all the way up I realized that that was where the scream came from. The only thing I didn’t know was where he got a recording of the scream. That became obvious later in the show when the proper clue was dropped. So I guess you could say that it was 99% solvable within the first five minutes or so.
I did notice, so I guess I’ll keep my hand down.
Even this was easy to figure out this time around. Once we found out the victim was an actress, I was waiting for the revelation that she had done a horror film. And I’m bad at figuring this kind of stuff out. But then, who watches this show for the mystery?
One other thing made me laugh about this episode: it furthered Monk’s reputation as an undisputed babe magnet. It’s obviously not enough that he has the knockout Bitty Schram as his nurse, or that he was married to the supermodel-esque Trudy (depicted by the indescribably beautiful Stellina Rusich), but now he’s got Sarah Silverman obsessing over him! Not bad for a guy that didn’t leave his apartment for four years…