Monk (From The Argus)

Monk

4:50pm Thursday 13th August 2009

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Monk must be the only TV detective I’ve ever come across to favour panic attacks over temper tantrums and prefers washing his hands 17 times to necking a bottle of scotch when things get tricky. Yet, his hyper-sensitivity works in his favour when it comes to the job, and he always manages to get the crimes solved and neatly folded away with plenty of time to spare for some mild comedy, usually at his expense. There’s no way this show is going to offend your sensibilities, or upset your digestion. It’s a soft focus approach to potentially serious issues, which is all most people can cope with during the mid-afternoon post-lunch crash.

A grand old tradition in the world of TV policing is that if you’re good at your job, you have some terrible dark secret to thank for it. It’s destroyed your personal life and given you a gold-plated excuse to focus on relentlessly pursuing a case, without having to worry that your other half is at home, fuming over the ruined shepherd’s pie you promised to be back in time for.

It’s also a great explanation for the maverick attitude and self-destructive tendencies which spur you on and, ironically, make you the cut-throat detective you undoubtedly are. Which means that turning up for work drunk, intimidating witnesses, you name it, they’ll probably end up promoting you for it.

But I’m getting a bit tired of these stormy-eyed, bad mannered mardy bum’s. I can’t relate to them. I don’t particularly want to any more. So as an immensely pleasing antidote to all that brooding and chain smoking in car parks, we have Monk - a psychological picnic basket stuffed full of hum-drum compulsions and phobias. He’s afraid of germs. He’s afraid of heights. He’s afraid of milk, ladybirds, harmonicas…and guess what? He’s probably going to get called in to assist in solving a crime which features all three.

Naturally, Monk also has a tragic past, his wife was killed by a car bomb that he believes was meant for him and he had a spectacular breakdown and allowed the OCD he has always suffered from to consume him. Aaaw. But thanks to the efforts of sassy and provocatively dressed nurse, Sharona, he’s managed to leave the house and get back on the job. Sharona also happens to be quite good at crime-solving, which is handy, because San Francisco homicide department would definitely fold without these two.

Monk, weekdays at 3pm, BBC2