What I’m Watching:TV Series Returning Next Year (part one)

In addition to the aforementioned Eureka on SciFi (see the previously posted “What I’m Watching: Tuedays), there are four other currently running shows that are on hiatus, mostly because they usually air during the summer. But not always. Usually their already cable-short seasons are split in strange places. So let’s take a look at these more obscure shows so you’ll be ready for them when they come back.

Monk

Is it a crime show? A mystery? A comedy? A character study of someone who has been seriously damaged? How about all of the above. Adrian Monk is the hilarious, if overly flawed, obsessive-compulsive detective whose multitude of phobias and nervous habits enable him to be a sort of modern-day Sherlock Holmes. Monk is portrayed expertly and with great complexity and finesse by Emmy-winner Tony Shalhoub and it’s almost worth your time to tune in each week to watch Shalhoub work. It’s impossible to watch Monk without feeling sorry for him a little but you’ll laugh out loud more often than not. He’s also sometimes quite a jerk (he’s stingy, cheap and self-centered). But because you know his story (he was a quirky police detective who, when his wife was killed by a car bomb, went off the deep end and has never recovered) you usually wind up on his side. Like Holmes, Monk is a pulled in by the Police Department (in Monk’s case, it’s San Francisco) almost every episode to help solve one crime or another and like Holmes, he brings along an assistant. The crimes are sometimes more difficult than others, but watching Monk solve them (even if you’ve figured it out yourself) is 95% of the fun. It’s maybe the one show Lori likes probably as much as I do. There’s a new episode on December 22 (strangely airing in black & white and then in color immediately following) and then new episodes return on January 19. Check it out on USA Network (check local listings for dates and times).