# New Season Of MONK Starts Tonight At 10:00 PM On USA **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [June 20, 2003, 5:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-season-of-monk-starts-tonight-at-10-00-pm-on-usa/183224 "2003-06-20T17:57:45Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![BiblioCat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ed8c4c/32.png) [@BiblioCat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BiblioCat)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2003, 10:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-season-of-monk-starts-tonight-at-10-00-pm-on-usa/183224/21 "2003-06-21T22:46:53Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Scarlett67 \* > \*\*I loved when he was writing his name on the chalkboard . . . classic Monk! \*\* I loved how he had to even up the two coffee pots, even though one was regular and one was decaf. Andrew McCarthy: “You mixed them.” Monk: “But now they’re even.” Andrew McCarthy: “But you mixed them.” Monk: “But now they’re even.” Of course they had to be even! ---
**Author:** ![FairyDust](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ccd318/32.png) [@FairyDust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FairyDust)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2003, 11:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-season-of-monk-starts-tonight-at-10-00-pm-on-usa/183224/22 "2003-06-21T23:23:13Z")
Yes, the coffee pots bit was hilarious! Am I the only one here who finds Ted Levine totally sexy as Captain Stottlemeyer? Mmmm, that voice! _drool_ ---
**Author:** ![Revtim](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/revtim/32/1042_2.png) [@Revtim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revtim)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2003, 11:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-season-of-monk-starts-tonight-at-10-00-pm-on-usa/183224/23 "2003-06-21T23:31:09Z")
Sexier than Levine as Buffalo Bill? ---
**Author:** ![FairyDust](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ccd318/32.png) [@FairyDust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FairyDust)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2003, 11:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-season-of-monk-starts-tonight-at-10-00-pm-on-usa/183224/24 "2003-06-21T23:38:24Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Revtim \* > \*\*Sexier than Levine as Buffalo Bill? \*\* It’s been years since I saw “The Silence of the Lambs”, and I couldn’t believe it when I looked up Ted Levine at the Internet Movie Database and learned he was the second bad guy in that movie, the guy who _eeeek!_ murdered young women to sew clothes made of their skin. I didn’t even recognize him! Spooky! :eek: ---
**Author:** ![Scarlett67](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scarlett67/32/7387_2.png) [@Scarlett67](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scarlett67)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2003, 11:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-season-of-monk-starts-tonight-at-10-00-pm-on-usa/183224/25 "2003-06-21T23:45:15Z")
The first time Stottlemeyer appears onscreen in every episode, I absolutely, positively cannot help saying in that weird voice, “Was she a great big fat person?” Drives Mr. S batty. 🆒 ---
**Author:** ![Revtim](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/revtim/32/1042_2.png) [@Revtim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revtim)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2003, 11:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-season-of-monk-starts-tonight-at-10-00-pm-on-usa/183224/26 "2003-06-21T23:49:15Z")
He was in a crappy horror movie, “The Mangler”, which I sat through in a theater. The whole time I was thinking “where the $%\*& have I seen that guy before?” I think that was the first time I used the IMDB and really saw its value. They should call the IMDB the “Where the \*&%$ did I see that guy?” database. ---
**Author:** ![mobo85](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b19c9b/32.png) [@mobo85](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mobo85)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2003, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-season-of-monk-starts-tonight-at-10-00-pm-on-usa/183224/27 "2003-06-22T16:43:37Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Scarlett67 \* > \*\*I loved when he was writing his name on the chalkboard . . . classic Monk! \*\* I especially liked the way he used a coffee cup to make a perfect “O.” I’ve never seen _Monk_ until yesterday. I took a look at this episode, and the 2-hour pilot. I like it. As an obsessive-compulsive myself, I don’t find Monk offensive. My problems are, of course, not as bad as his, but the way he touches things and counts them reminds me of what I used to do until I started taking Prozac. And he straightens things…I always do that. As a character, Monk is an interesting one. I love the fact that he always finds something that the detectives don’t. I like his savantness, too-in the pilot, he knocks a mayoral candidate’s pushpins off a map of the campaign, and then proceeds to put them back _all in the correct spot_! What’s not to like? This episode, _Mr. Monk Goes Back To School_, was a good one, too. One scene that I liked that hasn’t been mentioned yet was him looking at the anachronistic diorama of Sherman’s march to the sea (“General Sherman…Sherman’s March…Sherman tank.”) Everyone might not be big on Randy Newman’s new theme song, but I think it describes Monk’s view of life perfectly. (I also got the theory wrong…I figured the physics teacher had hired a double.) ---
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2003, 6:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-season-of-monk-starts-tonight-at-10-00-pm-on-usa/183224/28 "2003-06-23T18:08:22Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by GMRyujin \* > **I remember reading an article that said, in the first season, the OCD developed from his existing neuroses after his wife died/her death was unsolved.** Just remembered the “Marathon Man” episode. The prime suspect, Tonday, was Monk’s hero. Monk revelaed that he had been a runner himself but hadn’t done much since high school. Sharona finally got Monk to say why he quit running, he was at a big meet and wasn’t able to leave the starting block. His laces were uneven. Evidently, his OCD was around for a long time and had become progressively worse. I believe the death of his wife had a lot to do with that. ---
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2003, 2:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-season-of-monk-starts-tonight-at-10-00-pm-on-usa/183224/29 "2003-06-28T02:41:40Z")
“Mr. Monk goes to Mexico” is on right now. **Damn** this is good! ---
**Author:** ![Freudian\_Slit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/5daacb/32.png) [@Freudian\_Slit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freudian_Slit)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2003, 3:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-season-of-monk-starts-tonight-at-10-00-pm-on-usa/183224/30 "2003-06-28T03:40:31Z")
Wow, I didn’t realize there had been a “Monk” thread on for a week already. I was about to make one myself. Re: last week’s episode…I loved it. And yeah, the cops weren’t morons this time. Also, it seems as though Disher is moving on up. In the season one finale, he handles one end of the investigation sans Stottlemyer (albeit with period telephone calls to Monk). And in “Mr. Monk Goes Back to School,” he’s the one who picks up on the prescription sunglasses, and the one who gets to say, “Take him away.” 🙂 I didn’t really love “Mr. Monk Goes to Mexico.” I mean… [Spoiler]I thought it might be the doctor when they mentioned the guy getting mauled by the circus lion. It just seemed too obvious, especially when he piped in with, “Yeah, I did the autopsy on that one, too.” It felt like they were pulling explanations out of the air. It’s one of those mysteries that the audience doesn’t have a hope of solving because it involves some history that not even season 1 buffs can pick up on. Plus, would any doctor really risk all that just to get his hands on someone he never even met? (As Monk ponders at the end of the episode.) He has to come up with two creative deaths which is pretty dangerous for him.[/Spoiler] So, all in all, tonight was a let down for me, after last week’s triumph. ---
**Author:** ![Duke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e8c25b/32.png) [@Duke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duke)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2003, 3:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-season-of-monk-starts-tonight-at-10-00-pm-on-usa/183224/31 "2003-06-28T03:47:34Z")
Yeah, but **Zoggie** , With those two bumbling cops in town (remind you of anybody? heh heh), who thought everything had to do with drug-running, the coroner didn’t have a thing to worry about. ---
**Author:** ![StGermain](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stgermain/32/2868_2.png) [@StGermain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/StGermain)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2003, 5:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-season-of-monk-starts-tonight-at-10-00-pm-on-usa/183224/32 "2003-06-28T05:30:47Z")
**Zoggie** - Plus Consider Monk’s continuing grief/obsession regarding his own wife’s death. I can see Monk coming up with twisted revenge plots if he discovered who killed Trudy. He’s certainly bright enough to come up with something diabolical. StG ---
**Author:** ![Leaper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/4bbf92/32.png) [@Leaper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaper)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2003, 6:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-season-of-monk-starts-tonight-at-10-00-pm-on-usa/183224/33 "2003-06-28T06:00:21Z")
In addition, [spoiler]remember that he probably thought that his life was pretty much over. His wife was gone, he was living in exile in another country, probably much poorer than he was in America, in the middle of a resort town full of teenaged reminders of what he had to leave behind. More likely than not, the only thing he had left to live for was revenge on Monk. (What was the crime he was convicted of again, and why did his wife kill herself? My head was whirling from the revelations, and with Monk’s thirst-cracked voice, it was hard to understand at times.) Oh, and knowing the history behind the two was irrelevant, really. I think you can give yourself full marks if you figured out that the coroner was the killer, and that killed the kid specifically to get to Monk. I had a vague suspicion of the coroner too, but it was hardly solid at all. I made the mistake of trying to figure out the impossible crime. I had the vague idea that the coroner might’ve been lying, but never followed through.[/spoiler] I liked it. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Incubus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c68b51/32.png) [@Incubus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Incubus)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2003, 7:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-season-of-monk-starts-tonight-at-10-00-pm-on-usa/183224/34 "2003-06-28T07:35:39Z")
I really got a laugh out of the evening out the two pots of coffee. The best part is when there is this pause, then Monk says “But they’re even anyway…” and quickly continues on his questioning so the other guy can’t say “but they’re mixed together”. ---
**Author:** ![Suse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/df705f/32.png) [@Suse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Suse)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2003, 12:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-season-of-monk-starts-tonight-at-10-00-pm-on-usa/183224/35 "2003-06-28T12:29:27Z")
I’m so depressed that I can’t see Monk (no cable, no satellite)! I loved it last year when ABC was showing the episodes; the one with Willie Nelson had me laughing so hard I had tears rolling down my face. I’ll just have to get a vicarious fix from this thread. ---
**Author:** ![Doomtrain](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/0ea827/32.png) [@Doomtrain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Doomtrain)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2003, 1:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-season-of-monk-starts-tonight-at-10-00-pm-on-usa/183224/36 "2003-06-28T13:30:54Z")
Man, I love Monk. Even the commercials (endlessly replayed) are funny. ---
**Author:** ![Freudian\_Slit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/5daacb/32.png) [@Freudian\_Slit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freudian_Slit)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2003, 7:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-season-of-monk-starts-tonight-at-10-00-pm-on-usa/183224/37 "2003-06-28T19:19:15Z")
Yeah, you guys bring up valid points. I did particularly like how the Mexican cops were…well, reminders of our old American police friends. Ah, the Mexicans and their drugs. ---
**Author:** ![Cervaise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cervaise/32/16693_2.png) [@Cervaise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cervaise)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2003, 9:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-season-of-monk-starts-tonight-at-10-00-pm-on-usa/183224/38 "2003-06-28T21:57:37Z")
I thought “Mr. Monk Goes to Mexico” was good, but not anywhere near as good as last week. [spoiler]The fake death was too obvious, but they turned it into a pretty good Stottlemeyer joke. Also obvious was who T.J. would turn out to be when Sharona (it’s Sharona, right?) told him she’d rather chew glass, but again the drinking contest turned out to be pretty funny. So it’s like they come up with dumb ideas, but then actually make something decent out of them. Kind of a mixed effect for me. The thing I _really_ didn’t like about the episode was how out-of-sorts Monk became, with being dehydrated and almost unable to function. Part of the fun of the show is that Monk has this obstacle, which causes him annoyance and makes his suspects not take him seriously, but he rises above. Even while he’s putting all the colored pins back in the map, or whatever, he’s still paying attention to what’s going on around him. This time, though, his abilities were seriously impacted; he actually said to the Mexican cop at one point, “What? I wasn’t listening.” That’s a no-no, for me, in terms of how I engage with Monk’s character. No matter how bad things get, he should _always_ be listening, and if things are so bad he can’t listen, then they’ve overshot the mark on the situation. It’s enjoyable watching Monk struggle; I don’t want to see him _suffer._ I do like the fact that they’re trying to come up with new stuff for the character to do, and new places for him to explore. The nature of the show means it lends itself to formula, which could get seriously boring after a while (c.f. _The X-Files_ in the last couple of seasons). It’s nice that the writers are trying to stretch and aren’t resting on comfortable cliche. I just think they went a little too far afield this time around. It’s interesting to see what the boundaries of the character and his world really are.[/spoiler] Despite that complaint, I still liked the show. Clever mystery, some good comedy, etc. If the show were always at this level, I might lose interest eventually, but I know from the past that this was just a hiccup. But re next week, is that a rerun? They did a murder mystery on an airplane last season. Is this the same episode? I couldn’t tell from the preview. ---
**Author:** ![Leaper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/4bbf92/32.png) [@Leaper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaper)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2003, 10:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-season-of-monk-starts-tonight-at-10-00-pm-on-usa/183224/39 "2003-06-28T22:11:07Z")
**Cervaise** : According to the official homepage on USA, yes, it’s a rerun. Apparently, they’re skipping the 4th of July for fear of activities sapping away their audience. New episodes are running for the next three weeks after the 4th. ---
**Author:** ![Freudian\_Slit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/5daacb/32.png) [@Freudian\_Slit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freudian_Slit)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2003, 10:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-season-of-monk-starts-tonight-at-10-00-pm-on-usa/183224/40 "2003-06-28T22:11:33Z")
Yeah, it’s a rerun, on the fourth of July. But they’ll be showing a new one the week after that. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-season-of-monk-starts-tonight-at-10-00-pm-on-usa/183224.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-season-of-monk-starts-tonight-at-10-00-pm-on-usa/183224.md?page=3)