Monk: Season Three

Some Monk fans felt that this delightfully offbeat series started running out of gas in its third year, but the midseason introduction of a new assistant for the “defective detective” (Tony Shalhoub) helped rev up the show. It's undeniably true that in the 2004-05 episodes Adrian Monk's obsessive-compulsive schtick no longer has the same juice, but clever writing and inventive use of new locales help keep things peppy. The departure of original assistant Sharona Fleming (Bitty Schram) finds our hero practically climbing the walls at the beginning of “Mr. Monk and the Red Herring,” but he manages to hold it together while investigating a home invasion that turns into a self-defense killing when single mom Natalie Teeger (Traylor Howard) is forced to slay the intruder. Monk takes a liking to Natalie and her daughter Julie (Emmy Clarke), and after solving the mystery he offers the former bartending mother a job as his new assistant. Other standout episodes in this group of 16 include: “Mr. Monk and the Employee of the Month,” in which Adrian re-teams with his disgraced ex-partner, Joe Christie (Enrico Colantoni), who's now the security chief at a big chain store where a model employee has been killed (supposedly by a falling TV set), “Mr. Monk Goes to Vegas,” which begins with a middle-of-the-night phone call from vacationing Captain Stottlemeyer (Ted Levine), who urges Monk to immediately head for Lost Wages and help investigate the sudden death of a casino owner's wife; and the season finale, “Mr. Monk and the Kid,” which highlights Adrian's tender side when he becomes emotionally attached to an intelligent, sensitive toddler whose discovery of a severed finger puts the eccentric detective on the trail of kidnappers. DVD extras include cast and crew interviews, and more about Monk's quirks. Recommended. (E. Hulse)