Monk - Season Four

Everyone's favorite obsessive-compulsive phobic detective is back! Police consultant Adrian Monk (Tony Shalhoub) has sixteen more cases to solve. They're sure to leave him terrified and us helpless with laughter.In this batch of episodes, Monk is faced with a brand new set of puzzles. Who shot the pizza delivery guy? Why did a masked man break a stock analyst's right hand? Did Monk's late wife fake her death? Who tried to run over Lieutenant Disher (Jason Gray-Stanford)? And how could an astronaut commit murder when he was in space? While working on answering these puzzles, he must face the challenge of dealing with the dentist, the flu, a cubical, a hangover, and amnesia.Once again, the plots here are a little on the thin side. Heck, Monk usually tells us 15 minutes into the show who done it. The problem is figuring out how the person did it. I usually can't put all the pieces together until Monk explains it at the end, and then I feel foolish for missing it.Of course, the heart of the show is the humor. The writers go out of their way to put Monk into situation that make him uncomfortable to show him over reacting to things. Yet they keep him human, making us care for him. This is best shown in "Mr. Monk and the Astronaut." In one scene, we're laughing at his reaction to the laser pointers, the next we're feeling sorry for him as the suspect in the case belittles him. Yet by the end we're proud as always of the way Monk overcomes his fears to save the day. Overall, this keeps Monk human.Of course, the show works because the acting is so good. The actors take the material and make it shine. The cast is lead by Tony Shalhoub who brings Monk to life expertly. This is the first full season with Traylor Howard as Monk's new assistant Natalie. I may be in the minority, but she continues to grow on me each time I see her. There is an innocence and sweetness that compliments Monk so well. And Ted Levine and Jason Gray-Stanford continue their great work as the police who constantly have to call on Monk to solve their hardest cases.Unfortunately, this season does have a couple of negatives. While Monk's wife's murder is mentioned a few times, that storyline seems to have been dropped. I like the few clues we were given each season to advance that story. And this season has the single worst episode of the show yet. "Mr. Monk Goes to the Dentist" misses the comedy mark and becomes really dark really fast. While I liked the fact they made Lt. Disher smart for a change, the rest of the episode just didn't work for me.Those who have been buying the previous seasons know what to expect here. All sixteen episodes are presented in widescreen and Dolby sound on four discs. The set is light on extras, this time giving us only two both on the last disc. The first is a fifteen-minute look at the process the writing staff goes through to create an episode, looking specifically at "Mr. Monk and the Big Reward." Despite what the box says, the actual second bonus feature is a brief profile of Jon Perkins, the detective who consults on the show to help add a bit of realize to it.On the whole, this is another fine season of a great dramedy. This is the perfect way to preserve the show to watch over and over again.

I'm not really a TV person. As my manager Blane over at the trophy shop would tell you, drunk or sober, "Ramiro's family in Mexico couldn't afford a television set when he was growing up, so he got to miss out on a lotta culture." He's a bully. Now I just ignore him. Yes, we did have a TV; I just didn't watch it! My grandmother did all the watching, enough watching for the whole family. Blane knows all the TV shows you could imagine, just like my Tita did -- may she rest in peace. Times have changed since my Tita watched TV, but just like her, Blane's down with TV -- reality TV and even actuality TV. But his favorite are all the crime scene investigation thingies, just as my Tita's favorites were her telenovelas and Columbo. Monk really tickled Blane's fancy, because it's freaking funny - intelligent but ridiculously humorous at the same time. The first time he recommended Monk a few years ago, I thought he was just teasing me. He had been drinking again and kept slurring loudly, "Have you seen the new Columbo?" I vaguely remember seeing the "just one more thing" detective in México, with my Tita sitting next to the wood stove in the kitchen. With a flashback of memories, slapping me around harder than Blane has ever slapped me around in the production-and-assembly room of the trophy shop, I got a little misty because I do miss my grandma yelling instructions and clues at Columbo on Sunday evenings, and I told Blane he didn't know what he was talking about, that there could only be one Columbo. Blane nearly tripped over his shoelaces, steadied himself on the trophy assembly table, wiped his spittle with the back of his hand and stuttered, "This guy's better than Columbo!" I didn't pay him much attention then -- Blane was NOT going to get me hooked on TV. I loved my Tita, but I also know that her TV watching produced more of the sorrow that she was trying to get rid of by watching it. Funny thing is that he was right. Blane was right - I don't mind admitting it now, years later, now that Blane's ex-wife and I, and sometimes Blane's kids, sit in the living room of Blane's ex-house, drink Blane's ex-beer and watch Season Four of Monk on Blane's ex-television set.

As in the previous seasons, Monk kept me guessing about whodunnit each episode. An exceptionally frustrating experience occurred when I watched the 4th disk and it froze up in the first episode. No matter what I tried, I couldn't get it to work. I put it in my DVD player, my computer, tried three different software programs and I couldn't get it to work.Suffering from Monk withdrawals, I contacted Amazon customer service. What followed would cause anyone to rate 5 stars, I believe. Consider: I'm in the Army in Afghanistan, calling customer service by internet phone. I explained the problem to the representative and how, because of low bandwidth, I was having problems completing the return process online. The representative was very helpful, and sent a replacement season 4 out to me. He also sent a prepaid label for me to return the defective season back, since I couldn't print one here. Imagine how surprised I was when I had the replacement within a week. This in a place that often takes 3 weeks for a letter or package to be delivered. I'm hard to please, and even I can't ask for better than this.