And so we reach season 5 of Monk, in which Tony Shalhoub plays the eponymous OCD-afflicted former detective, brought in to consult on a range of odd and uncommon crimes.

The core cast — cops Leland Stottlemeyer (Ted Levine) and Randy Disher (Jason Gray-Stanford), Monk’s assistant Natalie Teeger (Traylor Howard), psychiatrist Charles Kroeger (Stanley Kamel) — continue to do good work, and Shalhoub repeatedly finds depths in Adrian Monk that make him sympathetic despite how damn vexing he can be as a person. It feels like the mystery writing lets this season down, however, with very little of it coming up to the standard of the previous year, almost like we’re just ploughing on to fulfil a contract rather than tell compelling stories well.

Interestingly, things took something of a Columbo-esque turn this season, with a sizeable proportion of these mysteries showing us the killer in the opening scene…in part, I can’t help but feel, because the quality of detection is pretty low and so we need it to be easy to join up the dots or else you’d question some of the serious jumps in logic required to fasten the guilt on the correct person.

In keeping with my Monk-baiting decision to look at each season differently, let’s just take these in broadcast order, eh? So, we have…

‘Mr. Monk and the Actor’ (5.1, o.b. 7th July 2006)
[Scr. Hy Conrad & Joe Toplyn; Dir. Randy Zisk]

Monk is trailed by an obsessive actor (Stanley Tucci) who is due to play him in a TV movie, leading to hilarious shenanigans of the expectedly weak sort. We know the killer from the first scene, so the interest here is how the crimes tie together…except the second crime turns out to be motivated by an entirely different cause than the one claimed, and so the whole thing makes no sense. Great to see Peter Weller enjoying himself in a one-scene cameo, though.

‘Mr. Monk and the Garbage Strike’ (5.2, o.b. 14th July 2006)
[Scr. Andy Breckman & Daniel Gaeta; Dir. Jerry Levine]

Half the episode is spent agreeing that an obvious murder is indeed a murder and so warrants investigation, but at least the second half has some fun with incorrect solutions. Though that’s about all you can say for this, except, I suppose, that a) it’s always lovely to see Chi McBride on screen and b) Alice Cooper is clearly having a ball in a silent cameo. As a mystery, though, this is pretty weak sauce.

‘Mr. Monk and the Big Game’ (5.3, o.b. 21st July 2006)
[Scr. Jack Bernstein; Dir. Chris Long]

A dead high school basketball coach, something to do with a forest fire and a cold case…honestly, I don’t remember this. My main takeaway is that an off-duty police officer turns up to a high school basketball game carrying a gun and everyone is apparently fine with this. Also, Monk has only solved 104 cases in his entire career? That doesn’t feel even close to right, does it? There have been 60+ episodes of the show, and in some of those he solves two crimes…and wasn’t he a cop for years?

‘Mr. Monk Can’t See a Thing’ (5.4, o.b. 28th July 2006)
[Scr. Lee Goldberg & William Rabkin; Dir. Stephen Surjik]

Blinded in an attack that sees a fireman murdered, Monk must contend with his new condition while figuring out how a petty theft explains the initial homicide. This, alas, is largely played for bathos and comedy rather than doing anything interesting in a Max Carrados/Duncan Maclain mould, and is fairly standard until the last section, which adds a wrinkle which does well to make it a little more interesting.

‘Mr. Monk, Private Eye’ (5.5, o.b. 4th August 2006)
[Scr. Tom Scharpling & Daniel Gaeta; Dir. Peter Weller]

Perhaps explaining his cameo back in episode 1, Peter Weller directs this one, which has easily the best script of the season so far. Does the classic P.I. thing of a seemingly pointless case having a larger, more sinister connection, and even indulges in some good detection (wax = birthday cake). Also uses Monk’s character well, allowing his actions to speak rather than bludgeoning us over the head with obvious traits like the first episode did.

‘Mr. Monk and the Class Reunion’ (5.6, o.b. 11th August 2006)
[Scr. Daniel Dratch; Dir. David Grossman]

Monk’s 25-year college reunion is overshadowed by the murder of a nurse who worked there, and the implication is that one of the attendees might well be the killer. Spends a lot of time on Monk’s less-than-happy past, but ends up paying off well with an unexpectedly good conceit in the final stretch. One very good joke, too (“It expired at noon…”). Solidly mid-tier, but just about worthwhile (the suicide note dictating things, say), and a shameful waste of Reginald VelJohnson.

‘Mr. Monk Gets a New Shrink’ (5.7, o.b. 18th August 2006)
[Scr. Hy Conrad; Dir. Andrei Belgrader]

The murder of a cleaning lady at Dr. Kroeger’s office leads to him quitting, resulting in the joke of the title. This is dragged out for quite some time. There’s one good joke (“I took the test three times!”), but the rest is pretty underwhelming.

‘Mr. Monk Goes to a Rock Concert’ (5.8, o.b. 25th August 2006)
[Scr. Blair Singer; Dir. Randy Zisk]

See, it’s episodes like this that make we wish Monk had a bit more rigour, because the ideas here are great: the reasoning used to deduce that an apparent drug overdose is murder, the way the key evidence is destroyed, the delightfully unusual proof that needs to be captured to make the case solid. There’s 20 minutes of great content here, mixed in with another 20 of the sort of loose shenanigans that really pall when you watch a lot of these in a short space of time.

‘Mr. Monk Meets His Dad’ (5.9, o.b. 17th November 2006)
[Scr. Tom Scharpling & Daniel Dratch; Dir. Jerry Levine]

Monk’s truck-driver father (Dan Hedaya) is brought into Monk’s life via the least imaginative means possible — a parking ticket — and the estranged pair go on a roadtrip together for some thoroughly unearned emotional payoffs. The essential mystery is intriguing at first, but the villain caught by means so obvious that you wonder why he bothered with so complex a scheme in the first place. I’d watch Hedaya read a phone book, but even his presence can’t quite lift this.

‘Mr. Monk and the Leper’ (5.10, o.b. 22nd December 2006)
[Scr. Charles Evered & Joe Karter; Dir. Randy Zisk]

A noir-tinged episode — also available in back and white — in which a simple job ends up having deeper implications. Contains a great piece of fair play, two excellent twists (alas, both revealed within about 15 seconds of each other), but is an otherwise enjoyable mystery in the Monk vein. But, mein gott, the sheer volume of low-hanging leprosy jokes feels like someone trying to win a bet, and rapidly gets rather tiring.

‘Mr. Monk Makes a Friend’ (5.11, o.b. 19th January 2007)
[Scr. Andy Breckman & Daniel Gaeta; Dir. Randy Zisk]

The essential idea here is good — someone befriends Monk, and must clearly have ulterior motives — but it should be about half of what’s going on rather than a whole episode. Lovely to see Stottlemeyer getting to do some policing to reason out the killer’s identity, and contains a magnificent scene in which Hal (Andy Richter) holds a mirror up to the people who surround Monk, but there should be double the content here.

‘Mr. Monk is at Your Service’ (5.12, o.b. 26th January 2007)
[Scr. Rob LaZebnik; Dir. Anton Cropper]

Some neat detection brings a year-old murder to Monk’s attention, and finds him working for a young billionaire (Sean Astin), who we saw murder his previous butler in the opening scene. Lots of Monk tidying a house follows, but there’s a good moment of detection from Natalie to indicate a foundation for genuine suspicion. Again, the mystery part here is solid, there just needs to be something alongside it to make the episode feel more interesting.

‘Mr. Monk is on the Air’ (5.13, o.b. 2nd February 2007)
[Scr. Josh Siegal & Dylan Morgan; Dir. Mike Listo]

Radio DJ Max (Stephen Weber) is clearly responsible for the gassing of his wife, but was broadcasting live when she died…so howdunnit? The security system also says that no-one entered the house the night she died, giving things an impossible air. Alas, lots of Monk being awkward on the radio interrupts proceedings. The similarities here to a certain impossible crime novel are striking, to the extent that the mind starts to wonder…

‘Mr. Monk Visits a Farm’ (5.14, o.b. 9th February 2007)
[Scr. David Breckman; Dir. Andrei Belgrader]

Randy’s messes up on a job and quits the police, moving up to the farm he inherited from a recently-deceased uncle. Then he starts to suspect murder, so call’s Monk in. The method’s pretty clever, too, and in a nice twist Randy is the one to deliver it…just a shame more’s not done to enable him to realise it. The final piece of evidence is pretty weak, but I guess we can only expect so much at this point.

‘Mr. Monk and the Really, Really Dead Guy’ (5.15, o.b. 23rd February 2007)
[Scr. Joe Toplyn; Dir. Anthony R. Palmieri]

Easily the best setup of the series sees a street musician attacked and killed six different ways. The FBI are called in when this appears to be the work of a serial killer, and of course there’s a clash of methods and hilarity occurs. The shame of it is, the essential, clever structure here would be more surprising if Monk put more effort in week-by-week, as it has the capability as a show to be at least this good ever single time. Here’s hoping Dell paid well for that product placement, too.

‘Mr. Monk Goes to the Hospital’ (5.16, o.b. 2nd March 2007)
[Scr. Jonathan Collier; Dir. Wendy Stanzler]

A nosebleed takes Monk to the E.R. — yeah, because someone this notoriously stingy would incur U.S. medical charges — where murder’s been done. The who and why are established by the halfway point, and the heartbeat alibi is pretty neat, but the rest is uninteresting. I know it’s difficult coming up with 16 episodes to fill out a season, but surely we can do better than this, guys.

~

I’ve heard good things said about the three remaining seasons, and so it’s to be hoped that the experience of putting this set of rather damp ideas together proved to be a collective learning experience. Like Peter Capaldi’s final season on Doctor Who, this feels like it’s hitting popular notes without really understanding what made them popular in first place, but when it strikes the balance well it really does remind you of what this can do when the appropriate effort goes in. I’ll plough on, of course, but my enthusiasm for this show is somewhat dimmed on the back of the above.

~

Monk on The Invisible Event

1. Season 1 (2002)
2. Season 2 (2003-04)
3. Season 3 (2004-05)
4. Season 4 (2005-06)
5. Season 5 (2006-07)