Monk (TV series)

Series overview

Adrian Monk, graduate of University of California, Berkeley, was originally a detective of the San Francisco Police Department. Due to an unusual upbringing (the scope of which has not yet been revealed), Monk grew up with a variety of quirks and tics. After the murder of his wife, Trudy, and his inability to solve it (the only case in his career Monk has never been able to solve), Monk suffered a nervous breakdown, and his eccentricities manifested themselves as obsessive compulsive disorder, which cost him his job. He refused to leave his house for three years. After his three years in seclusion, Monk began consulting work for the department, helping the police solve difficult cases. Police Captain Leland Stottlemeyer (Ted Levine) and Lieutenant Randy Disher (Jason Gray-Stanford) call on, and spar with, Monk when they have a case they can't crack. Stottlemeyer is often infuriated with Monk's disorder, but respects his amazing observational abilities. Monk continues to search for information about his wife's death as he works on other cases.

Related Topics:
University of California, Berkeley - San Francisco - Tic - Nervous breakdown - Obsessive compulsive disorder - Ted Levine - Jason Gray-Stanford

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Monk's personal nurse, Sharona Fleming (Bitty Schram), helped get him back on his feet. Occasionally, Sharona's son Benjy (Kane Ritchotte) helps Monk with cases, albeit unintentionally. Bitty Schram left the show during third season due to "creative differences". Traylor Howard plays Monk's new assistant, Natalie Teeger. Natalie's daughter is Julie (Emmy Clarke)

Related Topics:
Bitty Schram - Kane Ritchotte - Traylor Howard - Emmy Clarke

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His truly obsessive attention to detail allows him to spot tiny discrepancies, find patterns and make connections that everyone else in the investigation misses. He notices things such as the absence of a red pen (the color used to write a purported suicide note) in a victim's apartment, which tells him that someone else wrote the note. The pilot episode, "Mr. Monk and the Candidate," contains a prime example of Monk's photographic memory: He glances at a board with hundreds of colored pins, and after accidentally knocking them out, places them all back perfectly within five minutes.

Related Topics:
Mr. Monk and the Candidate - Photographic memory

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Monk's mental and emotional problems extend beyond the boundaries of obsessive-compulsive disorder; he also suffers from a variety of crippling phobias (such as acrophobia (fear of heights), claustrophobia (fear of confined spaces), ophidiophobia (fear of snakes) and mysophobia (fear of dirt), mycophobia (fear of mushrooms), among many others).

Related Topics:
Phobia - Acrophobia - Claustrophobia - Ophidiophobia - Mysophobia - Mycophobia

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In "Mr. Monk and the Three Pies", the viewers are introduced to Monk's brother Ambrose (John Turturro), who is even more intelligent than Adrian, but has been confined to his house for many years due to crippling agoraphobia. The character is clearly based on Mycroft Holmes, older brother of Sherlock Holmes.

Related Topics:
Mr. Monk and the Three Pies - John Turturro - Agoraphobia - Mycroft Holmes - Sherlock Holmes

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Trudy was murdered with a car bomb in 1997 after leaving a drug store where she bought cough syrup for Ambrose. The viewer learns at the end of the second season that the bomb was built by a New York criminal named Warrick Tennyson. Dale the Whale, a 900-pound white-collar criminal whom Monk had previously incarcerated for his involvement in a murder plot, tells him about Tennyson in Mr. Monk Goes to Jail in exchange for Monk negotiating to get Dale a window in his prison cell. The episode was the final episode of the second season and resulted in the series' only cliffhanger thus far. In the third season premier, Monk finds Tennyson, who is dying in a hospital of heart disease. Monk is permitted to interrogate Tennyson, who admitted at the end of Mr. Monk Takes Manhattan that he was paid $2000 to build the bomb by an unknown six-fingered man who he met once in a parking garage. After learning this, Monk, in a rare instance of showing emotions other than fear or anxiety, turns off Tennyson's morphine drip so that he will die in agony. After a few moments, Monk relents and turns it back on, not because he wants to, but because he knows that his actions would disappoint Trudy.

Related Topics:
White-collar criminal - Mr. Monk Goes to Jail - Heart disease - Mr. Monk Takes Manhattan

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The show is widely acclaimed for its excellent guest stars, which in addition to Turturro have included Olek Krupa, Sarah Silverman, Tim Daly, Willie Nelson, Carmen Electra, Jason Alexander, Ko?n, James Brolin, Danny Bonaduce and Tim Curry.

Related Topics:
Olek Krupa - Sarah Silverman - Tim Daly - Willie Nelson - Carmen Electra - Jason Alexander - Ko?n - James Brolin - Danny Bonaduce - Tim Curry

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The original two hour pilot was commissioned by ABC, originally as a vehicle for Michael Richards, who dropped out after reading the script for the pilot. Afterward, they weren't certain about the series and handed it off to USA Network. As part of the deal, ABC got the right to air repeats of the series after the episodes ran on USA. ABC used some episodes to fill in its summer schedule and got respectable ratings. Technically, the deal is still in place, but with USA Network being bought by NBC/Universal, the odds of episodes showing up on broadcast TV are very slim.

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Sharona left in the middle of the third season; the explanation given for her absence was that she remarried her ex-husband and moved back to the East Coast. She was replaced by Natalie, another single mother (with a daughter instead of a son) who worked as a barmaid before becoming Monk's assistant. She is also a recovering gambler who lived in Las Vegas for two years. Her late husband was a pilot shot down over Kosovo, and was accused of being a coward when he panicked and left with the crew's radios. Natalie maintains a tough exterior to make sure her daughter is strong enough to handle whatever facts come out. Just before his last flight, the husband gave his daughter a goldfish dubbed Mr. Henry. Natalie has been substituting the fish for years, providing the illusion that the fish is the same one to help her daughter cope.

Related Topics:
East Coast - Gambler - Las Vegas - Pilot - Kosovo - Coward - Panic - Radio

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Season 4 premiered Friday July 8 2005 at 10 PM Eastern time; as is the show's custom, roughly half of the season's episodes will air during the summer, with the remaining episodes coming in early 2006.

Related Topics:
Friday - July 8 - 2005 - 2006

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