Monk--Mr. Monk Takes His Medicine
The first fifteen or so minutes of this episode were compelling, entertaining and interesting. Seeing Monk struggle with the decision on whether or not he should take the medicines that might help his OCD and the process he goes through when it comes to taking them was great work. Unfortunately, Monk downs a couple of pills and becomes a complete and total jerk. Now, I understand there's some humor mined in the whole Monk gets normal, but I didn't buy how quickly Monk embrasses his new attitude and becomes arrogant to the point that he's aliennating his friends. I thought we'd had a ton of refernces to how Monk was a good detective before he went over the top OCD after Trudy's death. But those all faded when he gets "cured." I think the whole point of this was to show how much better off Monk is without his medicine and while it worked, it didn't work as intended. But I did love the two little scenes with Trudy and Monk using her pillow to bring back the memory of her.
Stargate: SG1--Affinity
Ah, that wacky
Teal'c. He moves off-base into a nice neighborhood, starts watching TLC and HGTV, begins making new freinds and becomes a one-man neighborhood watch. Seriously, the guy moves in and becomes the neighborhood Fonzie in the course of what, a couple of weeks? But before you know it, Teal'c's good intentions are blown all to hell as he befriends Krista, the requiste cute neighbor next door who makes cookies and has an abusive boyfriend. Teal'c teaches her some self-defense and she winds up killing him defending herself. She then pursuades Teal'c she needs to get away for a weekend and before you can say, "Bad idea" they're off, captures by some bad guys with their own agenda who want Daniel to translate some Goa'uld for them. Apparently, he's the only guy on the planet who can, but yet they will be able to confirm if he's playing games with them somehow.
At first, I thought this was gonna be a standard filler episode of Stargate. Nothing wrong with that--all shows have 'em. It's just how creative you get with the filler episodes that defines whether a series is good or great. But somewhere around the second commerical break, this one actually veered into other interesting territory. Who is this group that is using this situation to blackmail Daniel through Teal'c and Krista? Do they have an agenda and what did Daniel translate for them? What's the purpose? It left me with a lot of unanswered questions that might play out over the course of the rest of the season.
And you have to figure that Teal'c wasn't just watching TLC and HGTV here. He clearly must have caught a few repeats of Star Trek with his love 'em and leave 'em relationship with Krista. I know that he's moving back on the base, but surely the guy could pick up the phone every once in a while. It's not like he's warpring off several light years awa and can't call her. She seemed to really like him and he her. So why not let Teal'c have a chance at a relationship? Oh wait...I know why now--becasue the actress playing Krista is Erica Durance who 's been cast as Lois Lane for a recurring stint on Smallville this fall.
posted by Michael Hickerson at 8/30/2004 09:59:00 AM |
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