If anyone's wondering about this show I highly recommend if you want something that's light and easy to pick up but not too light that it's totally corny or anything. This show is a very lighthearted take on cop/crime TV shows. It's got upbeat music, a quick pace, lots of comedy peppered into each episode, and yet it doesn't try too hard to sugar coat the murders Monk is trying to solve or the criminals he's going after.
Besides having a much less gritty and more comical mood than Law and Order, it's in the same type of style as those shows. A murder kicks off the episode, sometimes you don't see the murderer and you can figure it out with Monk, and sometimes you see the murderer and watch as Monk tries to solve it. Each episode is encapsulated within itself save for a few 2-part to be continued episodes throughout the show. This makes it nice because you can just throw on a random episode, watch it enjoy, and it won't totally hook you in where you have to binge watch or wonder what happens at the end of each episode. While I love those type of shows it's nice to have something you can eat up in 42 minutes and go about your day without wondering.
Basically Monk is a detective in San Francisco. He has an assistant (two different actresses play his assistant and they switch somewhere midway through the series), an agoraphobic brother, and he is a widower who was deeply in love with his wife, who was murdered before the series picks up. This is a recurring storyline throughout the entire series -- Monk will find little clues,
The thing that makes Monk unique as both a character and what differentiates this from the average crimesolver police show is his severe mental disorders. | Megalinks MegaDBThe thing that makes Monk unique as both a character and what differentiates this from the average crimesolver police show is his severe mental disorders.
Monk has severe OCD, germophobia, and plenty of little quirks about himself involving order and cleanliness, mostly based around that disorder and that phobia. However.. because he has these problems, it turns him into something of a super-detective. It's been awhile so I can't remember if he is specifically employed by the SFPD or if they use him as an independent consultant, but either way, he's so good at noticing things out of order, extremely perceptive at reading a room and getting a feel for the last things that happened in it, noticing tiny subtle details about people, that he's the top detective in the city by far.
He has a reputation among the police as being slightly difficult to work with because of his quirks, the main sergeant is a classic cop type character with his right hand man being a little more goofy but determined, and although the sergeant cop thinks Monk is a pain in the ass and they bump heads all the time, he recognizes his brilliance and realizes he needs him around.
Overall the show is a great balance of light comedy / mood / cinematography, mixed with semi-gritty opening scene murders, clever writing, twists and turns, and enough character development and storyline arcs to glue the series together very well. Tony Shaloub is absolutely brilliant in this role and won an Emmy and Golden Globe in 2003 and another Emmy in 2005 for his performance as Monk. I highly recommend it, I used to love this a ton in high school and I'm so looking forward to diving back in! Thanks /u/imranr11 !
[-] braunheiser | 9 points | Oct 18 2016 21:52:53
Thanks so much imranr11 you are truly the man!!
If anyone's wondering about this show I highly recommend if you want something that's light and easy to pick up but not too light that it's totally corny or anything. This show is a very lighthearted take on cop/crime TV shows. It's got upbeat music, a quick pace, lots of comedy peppered into each episode, and yet it doesn't try too hard to sugar coat the murders Monk is trying to solve or the criminals he's going after.
Besides having a much less gritty and more comical mood than Law and Order, it's in the same type of style as those shows. A murder kicks off the episode, sometimes you don't see the murderer and you can figure it out with Monk, and sometimes you see the murderer and watch as Monk tries to solve it. Each episode is encapsulated within itself save for a few 2-part to be continued episodes throughout the show. This makes it nice because you can just throw on a random episode, watch it enjoy, and it won't totally hook you in where you have to binge watch or wonder what happens at the end of each episode. While I love those type of shows it's nice to have something you can eat up in 42 minutes and go about your day without wondering.
Basically Monk is a detective in San Francisco. He has an assistant (two different actresses play his assistant and they switch somewhere midway through the series), an agoraphobic brother, and he is a widower who was deeply in love with his wife, who was murdered before the series picks up. This is a recurring storyline throughout the entire series -- Monk will find little clues,
Monk has severe OCD, germophobia, and plenty of little quirks about himself involving order and cleanliness, mostly based around that disorder and that phobia. However.. because he has these problems, it turns him into something of a super-detective. It's been awhile so I can't remember if he is specifically employed by the SFPD or if they use him as an independent consultant, but either way, he's so good at noticing things out of order, extremely perceptive at reading a room and getting a feel for the last things that happened in it, noticing tiny subtle details about people, that he's the top detective in the city by far.
He has a reputation among the police as being slightly difficult to work with because of his quirks, the main sergeant is a classic cop type character with his right hand man being a little more goofy but determined, and although the sergeant cop thinks Monk is a pain in the ass and they bump heads all the time, he recognizes his brilliance and realizes he needs him around.
Overall the show is a great balance of light comedy / mood / cinematography, mixed with semi-gritty opening scene murders, clever writing, twists and turns, and enough character development and storyline arcs to glue the series together very well. Tony Shaloub is absolutely brilliant in this role and won an Emmy and Golden Globe in 2003 and another Emmy in 2005 for his performance as Monk. I highly recommend it, I used to love this a ton in high school and I'm so looking forward to diving back in! Thanks /u/imranr11 !
A quick scene from the opening of an episode (I believe that's what it is, I don't have sound available at the moment!)
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