Country of origin United States Original network USA Network | No. of episodes 16 | |
Original release June 18, 2004 – March 4, 2005 | ||
The third season of Monk originally aired in the United States on USA Network from June 18, 2004, to March 4, 2005. It consists of 16 episodes. Tony Shalhoub, Ted Levine, and Jason Gray-Stanford reprise their roles as the main characters, and Traylor Howard joins the cast. Bitty Schram left the show due to a contract dispute during the Winter hiatus. A DVD of the season was released on July 5, 2005.
Contents
Crew
Andy Breckman continued his tenure as show runner. Executive producers for the season include Breckman and David Hoberman. NBC Universal Television Studio was the primary production company backing the show. Randy Newman's theme ("It's a Jungle Out There") continued to be used, while Jeff Beal's original instrumental theme can be heard in some episodes. Directors for the season include Randall Zisk, Jerry Levine, Michael Zinberg, and Andrei Belgrader. Zisk received an Emmy award-nomination for his work on "Mr. Monk Takes His Medicine." Writers for the season included Andy Breckman, David Breckman, Lee Goldberg, William Rabkin, Joe Toplyn, Daniel Dratch, Hy Conrad, and Tom Scharpling.
Cast
Tony Shalhoub returned as the titular character and OCD detective, Adrian Monk. Ted Levine and Jason Gray-Stanford reprised their roles as Captain Leland Stottlemeyer and Lieutenant Randall "Randy" Disher, respectively. Bitty Schram portrayed Monk's nurse, Sharona Fleming, for the first half of the season, but left due to a contract dispute. Traylor Howard was then cast as Natalie Teeger in a main role as Monk's new assistant. Andy Breckman, the show's creator, stated, "I will always be grateful to Traylor because she came in when the show was in crisis and saved our baby [....] We had to make a hurried replacement, and not every show survives that. I was scared to death."
Guest stars for season three are in even more abundance than the previous two. Stanley Kamel reprised his role as Monk's psychiatrist, Dr. Charles Kroger, in nine episodes, while Kane Ritchotte continued to play Benjy Fleming, Sharona's son. Emmy Clarke entered the series as Julie Teeger (Natalie's daughter), and Melora Hardin returned as Monk's beloved deceased wife, Trudy Monk. Tim Bagley made his first two appearances as Harold Krenshaw, Monk's main rival. Jarrad Paul portrays Kevin Dorfman, Monk's annoying upstairs neighbor, while Glenne Headly continues to portray Karen Stottlemeyer, the captain's wife. Other guest stars for the season include Brooke Adams, Scott Adsit, Kelly Albanese, Amy Aquino, Moon Bloodgood, James Brolin, Emma Caulfield, Jonathan Chase, Maree Cheatham, Enrico Colantoni, Frank Collison, Alicia Coppola, Carmen Electra, Patrick Fischler, Rosemary Forsyth, Sutton Foster, Neil Giuntoli, Michael A. Goorjian, Parker Goris, Harry Groener, Eileen Grubba, Saverio Guerra, Bob Gunton, Philip Baker Hall, John Michael Higgins, Rick Hoffman, James Intveld, Sung Kang, Chris Kennedy, Edward Kerr, Lance Krall, Olek Krupa, Mako, Ken Marino, John Maynard, Larry Miller, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Glenn Morshower, Lochlyn Munro, Niecy Nash, Arthel Neville, Patrick Thomas O'Brien, Raymond O'Connor, Nick Offerman, Faith Prince, David Purdham, Judge Reinhold, Mark Sheppard, Nick Spano, Josh Stamberg, Nicole Sullivan, Alanna Ubach, Jill Wagner, Michael Weston, Mykelti Williamson, Adam Wylie, and Rachel Zeskind. The band Korn also makes an appearance.
Unfilmed episodes
One episode that was written but never filmed for the first half of season 3 would have been an episode called "Mr. Monk Is At Sea". The premise would have been that Monk and Sharona would investigate a murder committed on a cruise ship. A script was made for the episode, but it was never filmed because no cruise line was willing to loan a ship to the production crew to use for shooting, out of sensitivity to the idea of murders being committed on-board or people falling overboard. They refused to budge even when the victim count was reduced and the killer's identity was changed. This script became considered the series' "white whale" or 126th episode. It only came to light in early 2014, when it was rewritten and published by Hy Conrad as Mr. Monk Gets on Board, which maintains most of the original plot, but substitutes Natalie for Sharona, and adds in a subplot involving a book collector.