With Sharona in New Jersey to visit her ailing mother, Monk is left in the very incompetent hands of his annoying upstairs neighbor, Kevin Dorfman, but the prospect of a week with Kevin is eased somewhat by a visit from Trudy's father, Dwight Ellison. Dwight invites Monk (and Kevin) to spend the week with him and his wife, Marcia--and at the same time investigate gameshow host Roddy Lankman, who appears to be involved in a conspiracy to allow one of his contestants, Val Birch, to win every game. Despite the memories of Trudy aroused by spending time with her parents in her former home and the questionable help of Kevin, Monk discovers evidence that Lankman visited Birch's house--and that Birch visited the site of the accident thathuged Lankman's assistant, Lizzie Talvo. To discover exactly how Lankman and his crooked contestant are communicating--and possibly prove that they're involved in something much worse than cheating--Monk becomes a contestant on the game show. His knowledge of trivia is not much help, though, since Birch keeps shouting out the answers (A, B, C, or D) before Lankman has finished asking the questions. With a little help from Dwight, Monk discovers a novel way to expose the guilty parties--an onscreen phone call to Birch.

Episode Viewers and Ratings

Season 3 Episode 8 of Monk resulted in a 0.00 rating in the 18-49 demographic.

Monk Season 3 Episodes...

• s03e01 - Mr. Monk Takes Manhattan
• s03e02 - Mr. Monk and the Panic Room
• s03e03 - Mr. Monk and the Blackout
• s03e04 - Mr. Monk Gets Fired
• s03e05 - Mr. Monk Meets the Godfather
• s03e06 - Mr. Monk and the Girl Who Cried Wolf
• s03e07 - Mr. Monk and the Employee of the Month
• s03e08 - Mr. Monk and the Game Show
• s03e09 - Mr. Monk Takes His Medicine
• s03e10 - Mr. Monk and the Red Herring
• s03e11 - Mr. Monk vs. the Cobra
• s03e12 - Mr. Monk Gets Cabin Fever
• s03e13 - Mr. Monk Gets Stuck in Traffic
• s03e14 - Mr. Monk Goes to Vegas
• s03e15 - Mr. Monk and the Election
• s03e16 - Mr. Monk and the Kid

Monk Show Summary

Former police detective Adrian Monk, whose photographic memory and amazing ability to piece together tiny clues made him a local legend, has suffered from intensified obsessive-compulsive disorder and a variety of phobias since the unsolved cuddle of his wife, Trudy, in 1997. Now on psychiatric leave from the San Francisco Police Department and working as a freelance detective/ consultant on difficult cases, Monk hopes to convince his former boss, Captain Leland Stottlemeyer, to allow him to return to the force. Stottlemeyer, who wavered between admiration for Monk and annoyance at his eccentricities during the first season, is becoming more of a friend to Monk as the series develops, frequently calling him in to help, as much for Monk's benefit as for his own. However, he knows Monk's limitations as well as his strengths and may still harbor doubts about the wisdom of allowing Monk to carry aballoon or subdue a perpetrator. Stottlemeyer's second-in-command, Lieutenant Randall Disher, also seems to be developing both admiration and compassion for the man he once labeled "the defective detective".

Despite flaws and inadequacies all around, the three are becoming an increasingly effective team, with additional help from Monk's personal assistant. From the double-episode pilot through the first half of season three, Monk was aided by his nurse, Sharona Fleming. But in the tenth episode of the third season, Sharona was replaced by a new assistant, Natalie Teeger. Like Sharona, a divorcee with a son named Benjy, Natalie is a single parent, a widow with a daughter named Julie. Unlike Sharona, Natalie is not a nurse but a former bartender with a fresh perspective on "Mr. Monk", as she still addresses her new boss.