Rating: 
Summary: Monk, the man who fears no things, or does he?
Review: Monk is one of the best mystery/comedy shows ever (since we don't have cable or satilite we rent the DVD's and sure enough it was a hip in comedies and mysteries!) Tony plays former police officer Adrian Monk who solved all sorts of difficult puzzles. For example how can a 800 pound man known as Dale the Whale could get in a house and kill a lady. Or how did Adrian's wife died and who was the killer. What ever mystery happans Monk always solves it in the end! And Monk has this phobia and so he likes everything nice and clean (he wouldn't fight Darth
Vader because he doesn't like the sight of blood.) And he also has an assistent who of course doesn't like Adrian too much... I recomend if you a Nancy Drew fan, you won't be afraid to watch MONK!
Rating: 
Summary: A Very Original Detective Series
Review: Monk's first season is some of the best comedy/drama that has been on TV in years. Tony Shaloub is a gifted actor, and breathes life and believability into the character of Mr. Monk. Monk's daily struggle with OCD is at time funny and because of Tony Shaloub's portrayal, touching. We can see that Monk hates being trapped by his OCD, even if the disease is a contributing factor to his Sherlock Holmesian power of observation. All of the episodes in season one are enjoyable. Watching Monk chase a suspect through a sewer in "Mr. Monk and the Candidate" is hilarious. The interaction between Monk and his nurse/assistant Sharona is fun to watch. In episodes "Mr. Monk takes a Vacation" and "Mr. Monk and the Airplane", the back and forth between the characters is a riot. I think the highlight of this box set is "Mr. Monk and Red Headed Stranger". Some of the subtle jokes about Willie Nelson are great!! And the ending of that episode is very touching. Ted Levine, the actor who played the serial killer in "Silence of the Lambs" plays Detective Stottlemeyer (sp?), and is really good at playing the straight man to Monk.
If you enjoy mysteries, that don't involve shoot outs and soap opera (NYPD Blue), or mysteries that don't just pander to the geriatric set (Diagnosis Murder & Matlock), then Monk is for you. With outstanding writing, and a great cast Monk: Season One is Highly Recommended!!
Rating:
Summary: The Great Detective
Review: Now this is one of those shows that is just so hard to turn away and not watch. It's just plain genius. I also can relate to his Obsessive Compulsive but, just a little. MONK is just a wonderful show to watch and I am glad that it will be released on dvd. (Tony Shalhoub) who plays the so... misunderstood MONK is just great. And I also think Ted Levine (Stottlemyer)is wonderful in the role that he playswhich is allot different from his famous role for the (Silence of the lamb). I think this is a must have dvd in your collection.
Rating:
Summary: Perfect!
Review: Sure, I'll want to watch a stupid reality show every now and then...and, sure, I can stomach some of the violence and such that we see on tv... But at long last, here's a tv show that I can watch that puts a genuine smile on my face and that I would never be embarassed to watch with my family. Good clean fun and humor with great acting and characters. And you can watch the shows over and over again without tiring of them. Enjoy it!
Rating:
Summary: There is only ONE Monk -- A blessing -- and a course!
Review: This is a formula light-drama detective serious with a few new ingredients: The master detective is neither a sleepy-eyed, poorly groomed slob, nor a classy old lady mystery writer, but a middle-age man with a severe case of compulsive-obcessive disorder. Formerly a brilliant detective with the SFPD, Monk goes "off the deep end" after his wife is murdered, rendering Monk more impaired than ever.
A single-mom nurse assigned to help Monk adjust to life outside of mental hospitals, quickly doubles as his side-kick in the venture of priate consultation to solve unique murder cases. Many elements become "running jokes": Each episode has the 30-something side-kick single mom persuing a new love-interest, always ending in disappointment. Munk's fear of shaking hands, and his obcessive annoyance with anything asymmetrical is genuinely amusing. The viewer knows what the "problem" is with a scene, waiting for Monk to "do something about it". A crooked picture frame will throw Monk's whole world out of balance.
The most minute details, meticulously memorized by this incredible crime-solving genius, at times become somewhat far-fetched. The motives offered for certain murders are sometimes unbelievable. That aside, Monk can hold his own among the best of the Prime Time Crime Fighters. He's right up there with Ltd. Columbo, Jessica Fletcher or even good old Miss Marple and Sherlock himself. Many more happy seasons, please!
Rating:
Summary: Watching this show is MY obsessive compulsive disorder!
Review: This is my favorite TV show. I don't really watch much TV at all, but I try to never miss a new Monk episode. Monk is the most unique character to come along in quite a while, and Tony Shaloub plays him so well that it's impossible to imagine anyone else in the role. He *is* Adrian Monk. And it is a joy to watch him in action.
The show's writers are top-notch, as are Monk's co-stars Bitty Schram (as Monk's nurse, Sharona Fleming), Ted Levine (as Captain Leland Stottlemeyer), and Jason Gray-Stanford (as Lt. Randy Disher). There is a humanness to all of the characters, and a real depth to Monk especially, that makes this show so excellent, and so appealing.
The first season is one of the best, and I was excited to purchase this set, to have these gems in my collection. The show is now heading in a new direction this season, and I'm not sure I am going to like the direction it is heading. Bitty Schram has left the show, leaving in my opinion a HUGE void that will not be the least bit easy to fill. Monk was completely dependent upon Sharona for his needs, and the interplay and frequent tension between the two was one of the marvels of the show. The replacement for her this season is, quote, "a world-weary but attractive thirtysomething widow who works as a bartender." Ugh. That doesn't seem like a good fit to me. We shall see.
The other thing that changed for the worse after the first season was the replacement of the theme song by Jeff Beal with an inferior song. Beal's theme song is a fantastic instrumental, and it fit the show like a glove. Just a wonderful feeling to it. That has been replaced by "It's A Jungle Out There," written and sung by Randy Newman in his inimitable homely voice. Don't get me wrong; Newman made enjoyable songs for Toy Story and so on, but he is just not the right vibe for Monk. Just doesn't work very well, and the song itself is simply vastly less enjoyable to listen to than Beal's instrumental. Newman's characteristic pronunciations get on my nerves, too -- "Itsa jungul owut theya." Anyway, there is none of Newman in this set -- you get the great original theme song.
I am docking this set one star for the anemic "bonus material." The box makes it look like you get a lot -- Mr. Monk and his Origins, OCD, Fellow Sufferers, Emmy Award-Winning Performance, and His Partners In Crime. But these are all very, very short little features that amount to nothing more than some comments from producers and writers which lack any real depth, interspersed with a few snippets of the show. All of these individual features could have been just wrapped up into one single bonus feature that wouldn't have lasted very long even at that. You'll go through the bonus material in nothing flat, and it will give you a flat feeling too, like they could have done a lot, lot more with the bonus stuff. Also, curiously, "Randy Disher" is missing from interviews in the bonus films, though Sharona, Stottlemeyer, and of course Monk are all present.
The DVD also has a short movie preview at the beginning which you can thankfully fast-forward over, but I still hate ads on my DVDs. The studios seem to think that, well, when you see a movie in the theater, you pay your money and you sit through previews before the movie starts, so having previews at the beginning of DVDs is the same difference. No, it's not. People will sit through previews in the movie theater because (a) they look cool on the big screen, and (b) they're previews of something new. This doesn't translate to DVD. On DVD, any preview that might have looked great on a gigantic movie screen suddenly just turns into another "ad" on your TV set (unless you have a huge home theater). And on DVD, any preview will cease to become new in short order, so you eventually end up with a "preview" of a movie that made its theater run long ago. I don't want that in my collection, thank you very much.
But besides the one star docked for these quibbles, the other four stars speak for a show that I wish there were more of. Smartly written, intelligent humor, utterly unique, this show has it all.
Rating:
Summary: One of the finest series on television, if not the finest
Review: Tony Shalhoub as Monk is a miracle to watch. His compassion and intelligence is evident in every moment of the performance. Bitty Schram takes lots of edgy chances and almost always makes the grade as his assistant Sharona. The mysteries are occasionally thin, but no one watches Monk for the mysteries alone - there's the brilliant, funny writing, the wonderfully sweet and involving overarching storyline (with one of the more compelling male/female relationships at the heart of the series...forget all the red herring flirtation between Sharona and dreary Disher, we all know Monk and Sharona are destined for each other, once he brings his late wife's killer to justice), and the commitment to quality of the whole production. The DVD isn't out yet, but I know it'll be of the same quality as the released DVD pilot episode. As Adrian himself might say, I could be wrong but you know I'm not.
Rating:
Summary: Mr. Monk you rock!!!!
Review: We want the monk. We want the monk. We got the monk.
Monk is a wonderful and well written show. This is a must get DVD for all Monk fans. I been a Monk fan since season one and will still watch Adrian Monk on Fridays.
I'm going to get this DVD!!!
Adrian and Sharona are a perfect couple.
Rating:
Summary: Buy this DVD set so they'll release Season 2!!
Review: What can I say, this is a great show. The mysteries are interesting but it's the cast that's great! Tony Shaloub deserves an Emmy every year and so does Sharona. The Season One finale Mr. Monk and the Airplane was hilarious; you forget that he is trying to solve a murder. Let's make this a bestseller, so the corporate powers-that-be will release the second season, sooner than later.
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