I really like Monk. It's a bit silly, and the deduction logic is nowhere close to Sherlock Holmes, but Tony Shalhoub makes this a fun show to watch. This episode, though, was wrecked for me, mostly because of the first court scene.
I'm willing to suspend plenty of disbelief on shows like this, because the show is mostly about Monk's peculiar character. But that court case was beyond my ability to suspend my disbelief. Right from the get-go, the prosecutor asks Leland basically one question, about how Monk suspected the defendant because of the perfect weapon he didn't use. That's it - No questioning about any real evidence. And then the defense "super-star" lawyer (played by Jay Mohr) took over and took Leland apart. They mentioned the word "evidence", but never presented anything remotely evidential.
Then Monk took the stand and the story went directly to the defense cross-examination. Monk's *theory* (not *evidence*) was that the defendant, a sculptor, chopped up a marble block with an electric jackhammer and spread the pieces on his driveway. So the defense brings in a wheelbarrow of small marble pieces from the driveway and says if they all came from the same block, he should be able to put them together, like puzzle pieces. Probably hundreds of thousands of pieces, and the lawyer picks up a couple and says, "This doesn't fit. Not this one either". I don't think I need to explain why that's such a ridiculous "argument". The one thing that could have saved this would be if Monk actually was able to put some of the pieces together. That would have been silly, but much more in line with the type of thing that happens on a Monk show.
Oh well, they can't all be gems. Thankfully, they stayed away from courtroom scenes in most (if not all) the other episodes. Not their strongest subject.
I'm willing to suspend plenty of disbelief on shows like this, because the show is mostly about Monk's peculiar character. But that court case was beyond my ability to suspend my disbelief. Right from the get-go, the prosecutor asks Leland basically one question, about how Monk suspected the defendant because of the perfect weapon he didn't use. That's it - No questioning about any real evidence. And then the defense "super-star" lawyer (played by Jay Mohr) took over and took Leland apart. They mentioned the word "evidence", but never presented anything remotely evidential.
Then Monk took the stand and the story went directly to the defense cross-examination. Monk's *theory* (not *evidence*) was that the defendant, a sculptor, chopped up a marble block with an electric jackhammer and spread the pieces on his driveway. So the defense brings in a wheelbarrow of small marble pieces from the driveway and says if they all came from the same block, he should be able to put them together, like puzzle pieces. Probably hundreds of thousands of pieces, and the lawyer picks up a couple and says, "This doesn't fit. Not this one either". I don't think I need to explain why that's such a ridiculous "argument". The one thing that could have saved this would be if Monk actually was able to put some of the pieces together. That would have been silly, but much more in line with the type of thing that happens on a Monk show.
Oh well, they can't all be gems. Thankfully, they stayed away from courtroom scenes in most (if not all) the other episodes. Not their strongest subject.