h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

My favourite has simply got to be 'Monk' on the cable television USA Network!

Its third season begins this month and it features 2003 Emmy winner Tony Shalhoub as obsessive compulsive detective Adrian Monk.

He's got a phobia for everything which always makes for fun plot twists, like when he traveled to Mexico on a case and couldn't find his own brand of bottled water and nearly died of thirst. But its within this madness that his detecting abilities lie - as an obsessive-compulsive he notices everything (like the fact that the shoe soles of a man in a wheelchair were scuffed and therefore the man isn't really handicapped).

His personal nurse 'Sharona' played by Bitty Schram is always on hand to give him a moist towellette when he feels that he's been 'contaminated'. She serves as an odd sort of 'Dr Watson' to Monk's 'Holmes'.

The second season also featured theme music by 'Randy Newman' and was simply too funny for words...

It's a great little show with a clever twist on the typical detective genre.


- Jimi X

Monk - truly brilliant! Of course, as is often the case with good US TV that is worth watching, when it made it to TV here in the UK, it got buried in the schedules, was badly publicised and I don't even think it's on any more. Boo!

The quirkiness that seems essential for a good cop show could have been so badly done (Monk's phobias, his obsessive compulsive disorders) but in the hands of Tony Shalhoub and this production crew it works a treat, along with the overarching plotline of the murder of his wife.

Here's praying for a UK repeat...

I, too, am a Monk fan; and couldn't be happier that he has a new season beginning in January 2004.

One of my favorite bits was when he gave Sharona's son a winning count of jellybeans in a jar that he had not seen.

The only thing that I have not liked about the series was the switch in the theme music from the first season. Personalities aside, I thought the music was perfectly suited.

At least the production values remain strong.

Speaking of his phobias, did your heart just break for him in the bit where he had a chance to play with Willie Nelson's band? Still I could barely hear what was happening for laughing too loud.