"Monk" Season 7 Thread (1 Viewer)

[Joseph DeMartino]

I think the actor change was more a matter of price and/or availability than a planned evolution of the character, but I guess you work with what you have. That's the problem with recurring characters, you can never be sure that you're going to be able to get the actor who created a given role the next time you want to use that character. Then the choice is either use a different character in that particular script or cast a different actor to play the part.

Regards,

Joe

 

[Ockeghem]

Joseph,

And in my estimation, neither choice rarely works very well. But I also realize it's not always possible to get the actor again, as you stated above. When I saw Curry in the role, I knew something was missing, and for me it detracted from the episode somewhat.

I've been mulling over your comment regarding Ray Porter. Is this the episode with the 'window' in Dale's prison cell? Or is it another episode? I am trying to recall which of those I have seen thus far. I own the first five seasons of Monk on DVD, but I don't know if that includes two or three 'Dale' episodes.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

Without spoiling anything, the third Dale the Whale episode is very recent. Definitely not in the first five seasons.

 

[Joseph DeMartino]

The window subplot was seen in "Mr. Monk Goes to Jail", the S2 season finale. Tim Curry played Dale "The Whale" in that episode, in which Dales gives Monk a clue to Trudy's murder, and tells him the man he's looking for was last seen in New York. The last shot in the episode shows Dale looking out the new window in his cell at a plane (presumably Monk's NY flight) rising up towards cruising altitude.

Ray Porter appears as Dale in the season six finale - about which the less said the better, as you haven't seen it yet.

Regards,

Joe

 

[Joseph DeMartino]

Or she's been living somewhere else under another name, a victim of that ol' TV stand-by, amnesia.

I agree, it would be a total cop-out and undercut everything we've seen in the series. Finally there's the ending I know we won't see - where Monk wakes up one morning, goes to the bathroom to find the shower already running and pulls the curtain back to reveal Trudy. (Or Suzanne Pleshette, if she were still around.)

Joe

 

[GlennH]

Joe, I think Adam tried to avoid giving even that much spoiler info on the latest Dale sighting, since his appearance was not obvious in that storyline until it happened.

 

[Ockeghem]

Great. I'm pleased that a fourth actor wasn't brought in to play Dale!

 

[Joseph DeMartino]

I couldn't log in to the HTF at all last night. Not sure if I tried from work during the day. Obviously the site was having some problems.

Regards,

Joe

 

[Ockeghem]

Joe,

That's good information. Thanks. I am looking forward to another appearance of Dale. I was quite repulsed the first time I saw him, but I realize that his episodes do move the Trudy aspect forward nicely. As someone mentioned (I think), Dale will probably be in the series finale as well.

 

[Joe_H]

Am I the only one who thought the 'irresistable Poison Pawn' would be the wife herself, and that she was somehow involved with the plan?

Also, for him being such a genius, the explanations of how he did it were really lame.

 

[GlennH]

I agree. I thought they could have come up with something a little more ingenious, for such a genius, and I thought that there would be more of a twist involved with the wife's death. Then when the judge ordered that the first wife's body be exhumed "in the morning" my immediate thought was "well then you'd better have the grave guarded tonight." But conveniently no one bothered.

The part about Monk nearly planting evidence was also a little weak. As much as it bothered him that the guy was getting away with it he wouldn't do that (and climbing in a window should have been more of a challenge for Monk with his phobias).

Anyway, these are mostly nitpicks. Still an enjoyable show, just not one of its finest episodes.

I caught a woman's name during the opening credits, middle name was Shaloub. I forget the rest of it and I don't know if it was an actor or what. Anybody know the story there? Must be related to Tony.

 

[Ockeghem]

No, you're not alone. I thought she was making the whole thing up in order to conceal the possibility that she would kill her husband (maybe in some sort of contrived self-defense). But when she was actually killed early on, I gave up on that, obviously. Then I thought that the match that her husband won (that she heard about from the housekeeper, and which she saw part of on the screen) was somehow involved in her death -- maybe through some kind of ultrasonics on the part of her husband, or something! It's neat how Monk keeps me thinking, though.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

I would have liked for them to have guarded the grave immediately and still have him switch the grave stones (ie. he thought of it either before Monk found out about the first wife or between their chess game and the hearing the next day)

I liked the episode a lot and thought the murder was suitably intelligent. Mainly, though, I liked seeing Shaloub and David Strathairn square off against each other. One of the better "Monk" villains in a while.

I also liked the opening with Natalie arguing with Monk about the paycheck; it reminded me a lot of the Monk/Sharona dynamic. Of course Natalie's desperation for money is a little less plausible now that she's patched things up with her very rich 'rents.

And is it just me or does the girl who plays Julie tower over Traylor Howard now? Natalie only came up to Julie's eyeline in this episode, so I was shocked to see the former in heels and the latter in flats. One of those funny unpredictabilities in casting children for a series, though I suppose Natalie's strapping late military hero husband could have come from a family of giants.

 

[Stephen Orr]

Not unrealistic that Julie would grow so quickly. My son shot up between his freshman and sophomore year of high school.

 

[Joseph DeMartino]

Susan Shaloub Larkin (sometimes credited as Susan Larkin, according to TV.com) played Paulina, the housekeeper. She doesn't seem to have a listing on the IMDB under any version of the name, so I can't check any other credits. Given her age, I'd guess she's Shaloub's sister, using either a married name or a stage name with her original surname as the middle name. Maybe she's been a stage work and this was way for her to earn her SAG card. (Just in time for the strike. )

Anyway, I thought it was a good episode. I always like it when Natalie gets fiesty, and Shaloub does one of the greatest tightwads since the glory days of Jack Benny.


Genes are funny things. I had a teacher in high school who was nearly 6'5" - his paternal grandfather was a jockey. I'm 6'2" and my brother-in-law is 6'4". He had eight guys in his wedding party - all but three of us were his fellow football players from Duke. I would have been the runt of the litter were it not for his best man at 5'6" and his older brother at 5'8". (His younger brother was too young to be in the wedding - but was already nearly 6", as was his sister, who was my age and wore flats.)

And I'm another one who shot up several inches in one summer in high school, in my case between sophomore and junior years.

Regards,

Joe

 

[Joseph DeMartino]

Loved "Mr. Monk Gets Lotto Fever". Natalie letting fame go to her head and Monk's reaction to it all were great. I also loved how the bus-side advertisement gave Natalie some cleavage that nature didn't - shades of Kiera Knightley. But I thought she still looked awfully cute in the show gowns.

"Cartoon hippies..."

Regards,

Joe

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

My only quibble with Friday's episode is that one of the shots during the opening murder lingered a little too long on the attacker and I noticed it was Whitey from ABC's hilarious failure "Sons & Daughters".

Fortunately, he went ahead and killed the lotto freak less than halfway through the episode anyway. I also liked how they integrated Monk's lesser dependence on wipes into the episodes. Apparently he's improved enough that he only needs them for liquids now.

 

[Patrick Sun]

As soon as I saw "O-Face" (from Office Space), I knew he was the guy.

 

[Joe_H]

Is it just me, or has this been the best season comedy-wise in a long time? I haven't watched from the beginning of the show, but I've probably seen from around season 4 on, and this season has had me laughing out loud more than anything in a while. Maybe the mysteries aren't as good, etc, but its been funnier to me.

 

[Inspector Hammer!]

Did anyone else catch the referances to Crimson Tide? There were two guys named 'Mr. Wepps' and 'Mr. Cobb' lol.

I was shocked that they even managed to get Adrian onto the sub even for only three minutes.