Starring Tony Shalhoub, Bitty Schram, Ted Levine, Jason Gray-Stanford, Stanley Kamel
Written By:
Directed By:
Studio: Universal Home Video
Buy on Amazon.com link

It was hard to find time to watch Monk, but I eventually got caught up halfway thru the first season. The show airs on Friday nights and I was usually out. But after seeing some shows, I was hooked. I love the mixture of a serious detective show with lots of humor added in. Plus the performance from Tony Shalhoub is flawless.

Tony Shalhoub as Monk is perfect, and I think he’s a great comedic actor as well. Wings is one of my favorite TV shows and Shalhoub was hilarious as Antonio. He got funnier and funnier as the show went on. I just hope, whoever owns the rights to Wings, will release the seasons on DVD soon. But back to Monk, Tony Shalhoub is just as funny as Antonio was, if not better. The episodes might sound like a straight up drama, but they aren’t. I wouldn’t really consider this a comedy or drama, maybe dramedy? I don’t know, but there’s lots of funny moments in the show. Most of the jokes come from Shalhoub’s OCD behavior or people reacting to it. Some of the stuff that he does drives me crazy, but that’s the idea.

I think the second season is the best season because each episode is funny, or just really good. The relationships between Monk and Sharona grow, and Monk & Stottlemeyer get to know each other better. I also like season 2 because you get to know more about Let. Disher. You see how good hearted he is, but most of the time, he doesn’t think before he speaks. He’s the younger cop, still getting know way things work. Stottlemeyer serves as a big brother to him and their chemistry is great. I like the episodes where they don’t show you who did the murder/crime up front. As a viewer, I’d like to be more surprise and see how things come together at the end. But I also like the shows when you know who did it, but the fun part is seeing what Monk comes up with to prove it.

I was disappointed with the extras of this set. The first extra was a brief 4 minute feature with the creator of the show. He talks about how he comes up with the stories for Monk and thinks of Sherlock Holmes when writing them. The other featurettes are brief profiles on Let. Disher played by Jason Gray-Stanford, and Stottlemeyer played by Ted “It rubs the lotion on its skin or else it gets the hose again ” Devine. The last extra was a Precinct tour with Jason Gray-Stanford and that was pretty useless. I wish they put more effort into the making of these extras.

Overall, I loved the second season of Monk. There’s so many fantastic episodes and the video quality is just as fantastic. It looks great on my TV. If you haven’t seen Monk yet, you don’t really need to start from the beginning. You can pick up things along the way but it would help to watch the first season first. The extras are weak but the show is the selling point. This is worth owning if you like the show though.

Features:
The Minds Behind Monk
Disher (Jason Gray-Stanford) Character Profile
Stottlemeyer (Ted Levin) Character Profile
Precinct Tours with Jason Gray-Stanford

Audio:
ENGLISH: Dolby Digital Stereo CC

Video:
Widescreen 1.78:1 Color (Anamorphic)

Subtitles:

Favorite Scenes: Mr Monk Goes Back to School, Mr Monk goes to the Circus, Mr Monk and the 12th Man, Mr. Monk and the Three Pies, Mr Monk Goes To Jail
Rating: –Select–
Running Time: 671 minutes
Extras Rating:
Overall Rating: