Mr. Monk Visits UC Berkeley
Categories: TV, Reviews, SportsI’ve started watching Monk again. For those not in the know, Monk is one of the USA Channel’s 5 or 7 mystery series about a gifted Columbo-esque main character.
Monk has always been an inconsistent show. Like many mystery series, each episode is generally only as good as its mystery. The show started out with mediocre mysteries but a very entertaining main character, and over time, it sort of went downhill. This last year, however, has seen the show oddly rejuvenated. The key, in my mind, is that the show has become funnier. They’ve upped the ante; they now give Tony Shaloub’s character at least one big comic scene an episode, and along with a few truly goofy premises and mysteries, they’ve ensured that even if the mystery is stupid, it’s still entertaining to watch.
Anyway, back to my main topic. The character of Monk, it has many times been said, went to college at UC Berkeley. The show itself, in fact, is set in San Francisco. So when I saw that an episode was going to be completely about Monk’s college reunion and take place in Berkeley, I was quite interested.
Unfortunately, thanks to Hollywood magic, the episode takes place, umm, I have no idea where, but definitely not Berkeley. Still though, it’s worth noting that this ficticious version of Berkeley may in fact superior to the real thing.
The campus in the episode was really quite nice, with many old Ivy-esque buildings and fresh, perfect grass. Parking was clearly ample according to one scene, and the dorms were spacious and amazing. Beautiful oak wood doors with two people to a room, long spacious hallways, nothing more than one story high, and rec rooms that looked to be 50 years old. The cafeterias had lovely wood tables and extensive salad bars, not to mention nice plates and a very large staff. What’s more, the library had amazing marble floors that shone with the brilliance of diamonds. Also, despite the fact that the real Berkeley is a huge university with thousands of freshmen each year, the reunion easily fit in a small dining hall and everyone knew everyone else’s name. Every picture that appeared on the screen for the reunion slideshow was met with sounds of recognition and happiness. Also apparently no one at this fictional university has health problems because the fictional version of the Tang center had only one small window and one friendly doctor working at it.
Clearly this fictional Berkeley is a paradise and much better than the original. One odd note, apparently the Berkeley police do not exist and the school is policed by the SFPD and Berkeley is also apparently part of San Francisco, but honestly, I think that’s a small price to pay for a school this nice.
Funny, I watched Monk for the first time in ages last night. I was amused by the complete lack of effort to make it look even remotely like Berkeley. There was just one thing I saw that existed in our Berkeley, and that was just a quick shot of the Campanile in one of the slides.
With regards to the rest of your comments on the show, I didn’t really notice any big comic scene in this episode, or much that was particularly funny. Just the weird scene where they play touch football and for some reason all the guys run at him with their hands already way out in front of them and reaching for his face, allowing him to just duck a couple times and score. In addition to not being funny, it looks like Monk still will not ever make any progress in getting past Trudy, which I think is unfortunate. I understand that he has to solve the murder and all, but I originally stopped watching because it seemed that in each episode there were a couple of flashbacks to Trudy with that annoying sad music that plays when he talks about her. I guess it just seemed like he completely stopped developing, and his character being interesting was as much a factor in my watching as the mysteries, meaning with weaker mysteries it still seems like I have no reason to watch.
I stuck around and watched Psych as well last night since your description had aroused my curiosity. I wasn’t paying close attention for the most part, but it seemed worth watching again. At the very least, it didn’t seem to fall completely into the Frank Burns thing you mentioned. That one male detective did not seem to want the main guy around, but instead of doubting him at every step the detective just seemed kind of frustrated at not being able to do it himself. And the female superior always seemed very willing to listen when the guy had something to say, and even help. But it is kind of hard to draw conclusions after one viewing, so I’ll have to watch at least a couple more episodes.
Comment by James McBride — August 12, 2006 @ 4:10 pm
Yeah the Monk was not very funny. I was mostly referring to a few other episodes from this season that were actually pretty funny (the garbage strike one and the blind one). You’re also quite right that him still being obsessed with Trudy feels kind of lazy and uninteresting after so many years.
Psych I’m still pretty ambivalent about. It’s not a bad show, but the whole “psychic” angle is pretty half-assed. His visions are so obviously fake and goofy that you almost wonder why they keep the ruse going. I guess I just wish the psychic angle weren’t so shitty, since that was the idea that I had come up with a year earlier for something else.
Comment by tiltedfish — August 13, 2006 @ 2:46 am
Wait, garbage strike? Didn’t they already do that a while back? There was a sniper or something and one of guys was in a truck and then hit Stottlemeyer’s wife, I think. As for Trudy, I feel like it should still be part of the show, but can’t he make some progress with it? And, is it just me, or have there been a dozen different Trudy’s in the flashbacks?
Yeah, the psychic thing does not seem particularly important to the show, just kind of lame. Especially the part in the last episode where he was telling them he found the bullet. He really drew out the whole head rubbing thing, then said the bullet was there, and then they left and he whines “I had more!” It made me think at that point that both the guy and the cops knew it was fake and were just playing along. But I was not particularly bothered about that whole aspect, as it didn’t seem that important a part of the show.
Comment by James McBride — August 13, 2006 @ 5:02 am
Monk is one of my favorite shows but this one wasn’t one of the better episodes.
Comment by Kevin Young — September 24, 2006 @ 11:17 pm