Joseph DeMartino
Senior HTF Member
Perhaps that actress returned to shoot the Trudy material for this season (which will probably be more extensive than in past years.)Originally Posted by Ed Moroughan
Anyone else notice that the picture of Trudy was the first actress to play her? Odd. Good episode.
But you can't do that too much with an open-ended series. If you focus every episode on Trudy's death and Monk's history, you can frustrate the audience by emphasizing the obvious fact that her case isn't being solved. A show like this, with a pre-set end point (the one-armed man is found, the ship makes it home, Monk solves Trudy's murder and returns to the force - or doesn't) has to do a lot of stand-alone stories, because in a sense, the whole show is a stall. It becomes all about not getting to the climax that is contained in the underlying premise. (One of the reasons that viewers of Lost - a show that was designed as a continuing story where each episode would advance a number of storylines, including one over-arching one - get frustrated at one point was that the producers were asked to keep the series going longer than they had intended and they had to do this kind of "stall". As soon as they had a fixed end-date, they could start to build toward its climax and the fan's responded.)Originally Posted by Randy Tennison
This week's episode is the Monk I like to watch. It's about him, his character, and why he is the way he is. It's not the fumbling bafoon solves crimes gimmick that too many episodes fall into. It was about him, and I loved it.
Because Monk's writers are similarly working towards a definite conclusion, they can also now put more emphasis on Monk, Trudy and "curing", or at leat mitigating, his OCD symptoms to the point where he can at least be offered his old job back.
Regards,
Joe