Sunday, March 13, 2005

And Now, We Plug A TV Show

Do y'all watch Monk?  I do.  I've watched it from the very beginning and I am extremely disappointed in this season.  I'd thought I would be all peeved about replacing Sharona, but, really, I have no problem at all with the new nurse.  My problem is with the scripts -- which are all retreads of earlier scripts.  Well, ok, the settings are different, but the mysteries are the same.  I was able to figure out the mystery is nearly every episode this season -- and that's just wrong.  Monk is detective fiction -- in the model of the Sherlock Holmes stories -- you're supposed to be amazed and impressed by the detective's solution, you're not supposed to get there first.

But it's OK, because I've found a piece of televised detective fiction to fill the void, in the most unlikely of places.  House.  A medical drama.  I had absolutely no expectations first time I tuned in -- figuring it would be like ER or Chicago Hope or any of the myriad other medical dramas on TV.  Yet, to my great surprise, the few episodes I've seen play like detective fiction.  The lead character (Dr. House) is actually quite Holmesian in nature, in that he is much less interested in patient care than he is in solving really baffling medical mysteries.  And since they are medical mysteries (and since I am not trained in medicine), there is no chance in hell that I'm going to figure them out before he does.  Thus: the perfect setup for detective fiction.  We're here to watch the detective work, not to try to outsmart him.

And it's funny as hell.  "Like I always say, there's no 'I' in team. There's a 'me,' though, if you jumble it up."  Heh.

Tuesdays at 9, people.  Tape it while you're watching "Amazing Race." 

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Monk got old, fast. But here's something else we have in common - House! I've enjoyed it thoroughly from the beginning. Amazing Race offers no interest.

Off topic, have you been to view the new Phantom? If so, what did you think?