Watching Instantly
By Vijay Kumar
October 26, 2010
Browsing through NetFlix’s online streaming collection is not unlike those late Friday nights spent browsing through the movie maze in your local video store. The search for that perfect movie is often tricky. Sometimes you have to deal with a fuming partner and/or a melting tub of ice-cream in the car. The pressure is compounded by a listless, unhelpful store clerk in some cases. This column aims to be that clerk for NetFlix Instant Watch – maybe just a little less listless and little more helpful. This is what I waded through recently – at NetFlix.
Went Looking For…
Believe it or not, I sometimes do have a predetermined playlist while browsing for movie titles. Generally, there is a week between my adding them to the playlist and actually watching them. The movies under “Went Looking For…” are typically the movies that I had slotted as “Ended up with…” the previous week.
Monk Season 1
Monk is an absolute delight for fans of old-fashioned detective stories. The premise is always a simple whodunit that starts with what appears to be in the realm of the impossible before Monk pieces it together. The narrative focuses on humor and plot development without any social commentary whatsoever that other crime series get tangled in. The characters are the key and none more prominent than the defective detective with obsessive compulsive disorder and a multitude of phobias. It is a sad existence for a person unable to compromise with his illness that is compounded by the tragic loss of the one person who understood him – his wife, Trudy. It is to creator Andy Breckman and the writers’ credit that they can bring humor out of this pathos. There is obvious inspiration from other famous fictional detectives. There is a little bit of Columbo in the way Monk acts around a crime scene – he willingly lets other people involved either ignore him or berate him (he prefers the former but is usually the latter). There is the Sherlock Holmes level of observation and deduction. He also has a more brilliant and even more eccentric brother. Like Hercule Poirot, he struggles to skip procedure or change methods while arriving at a solution and is a little self-centered socially speaking. It is almost as if he has the best characteristics of all these predecessors.
Watching it on NetFlix gives a better experience than the marathons on USA network, thanks to access through different mediums. The downside is that Monk’s tediousness becomes a bit, well, tedious. It is difficult to imagine Tony Shaloub in any other role. I guess this is a gift and a curse.
Some of my favorite cases from Season One include:
"Mr. Monk and the Candidate" is a great introduction piece. It lays the ground rules and boundaries for the lead characters. Monk (Tony Shalhoub) annoys everyone involved with his OCD-fueled antics but saves the day. Sharona (Bitty Schram), Monk’s nurse and assistant, often resorts to bullying him to do the most menial of tasks. Captain Leland Stottlemeyer has to overcome his pride before hiring Monk but can’t prevent himself from admiring his former partner’s genius.
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