TVSquad

regarding natalie: from wikipedia

Natalie comes from an extremely wealthy family who own the "third largest toothpaste manufacturer in the world", Davenport Toothpaste[3], a company started by her grandfather Neville Davenport. She has had a Nissan, Buick, Jeep, and an Audi, which is believed to have been received from her parents.[4] Natalie's decision to marry a "common" man estranged her from her parents, Bobby and Peggy Davenport; for years, Peggy refused to display Natalie's wedding photograph at her home and considered Natalie's marriage "illegitimate" even though she and the rest of the family dote on Julie.[3]

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Natalie's background was revealed in the episode where her brother is getting married to guest-star Ashley Williams.

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I'm all for willing suspension of disbelief, and I would have enjoyed the episode if I didn't have a dangerous little bit of knowledge. But the writers of this episode don't know much about the Navy, submarines, physics, or even basic geography, and apparently were uninterested in doing even the most cursory level of research on same. The effects department didn't do a good job either, since the submerged submarine was a different class than the one they filmed when surfaced--an error which occurs frequently, but always bothers me because it ought to be simple to fix.

OTOH, Casper van Dien--always fun.

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I disagree about the submarine being good CGI work. Both my girlfriend and I commented on how fake the sub looked. They didn't even bother using a realistic surface texture for a sub and it seemed like they forgot to render realistic lighting too. If you ever seen a sub in port, you'd see a lot more texture and markings its surface.

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I should add that any shot that "you know is a process shot" should constitute as bad CGI for the simple fact that it garnered notice.

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And where was the pier where the sub was moored supposed to be? It was roughly the view from Treasure Island, but nothing like that exists there.

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The backdrop was also part of the effects shot. There is an old US Navy World War 2 era sub near Fishermans wharf in San Francisco, USS Pampanito.

http://www.maritime.org/pamphome.htm

We are supposed to think the sub is at Alameda I think.(The Navy had a base there up until the 1990s IIRC) The real view would be out across the bay towards Alameda (nuclear wessels lol) The interior shots were also from inside the Pampanito.

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Seeing Casper Van Diem in the naval uniform confirmed my belief he should be the actor cast to play Chris McGarrett in the proposed sequel of 'Hawaii Five-O' (where he would be playing Steve McGarrett's son).

Something about his look in that uniform made me think of Jack Lord.

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I'm undecided on the importance of the CGI and the naval credibility, so I'll stick with something I know: regardless of the fact that the other episodes are all called "Mr. Monk and the...," this episode should have been called "Ocean in My Pants."

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I really didn't like this episode. It was obvious who "the guy" was from the moment we saw the captian in the cold open. But even moreso than that, the notion that the bilge in a submarine is a room with electric lights that are always left on, behind a standard door that anyone can walk into at any time, is simply the most asinine thing I've ever heard. My gosh, even if a the bilge WERE something like that, basic safety measures would require a safety mechanism to open the door from the inside incase someone were in there while it started to flood with water.

You don't just open a door and walk into the bilge on a submarine. What if someone left the door open? Whole sub would fill with water as it went under?

Having them walk into a "radioactive" place on the nuclear submarine would have been more believable, and that's not saying much.

And the CGI effect others mentioned looked like a cartoon. Come on, history channel documentaries have better CGI than that. Much better.

I felt like I was watching a really cheap, B movie ripoff of "Crimson Tide."

I also don't like how Monk has all these different coping mechanisms for bad situations. After an earthquake, he can't speak English and just mubles (but thinks he's talking normally). When he was burried alive, he went into a trance and dreamt of Trudy. Plenty of others, those are the first two that come to mind. In fact, in one episode (at the winery, I think it was) it was suggested that Monk invented a character as a coping mechanism to deal with the anniversary of Trudy's death. Monk was SURE he had talked to a guy the previous night, but nobody else remembered the guy. Everyone said Monk had just thought him up as a coping mechanism, and after a while Monk himself started to believe it. But sure enough, the guy did exist and there was a conspiracy to hide him. So, it's been established that Monk does NOT imagine people as a coping mechanism. It's not like Monk hasn't been in horrible, near-death situations in many episodes. Merely being on a submarine doesn't come close to any of the "uncomfortable situations" in which Monk has found himself over the years.

Yet this is the first time he's imagined his therapist as a "coping mechanism." What makes it worse is that since the death of Dr. Kroger, he's only been with this therapist a short time, certainly nowhere near as long enough as to be as trusted to him as Kroger was. Yet he never imagined Kroger as a coping mechanism. This is one more step in the "Monk" writers being lazy and just turning the show into a mockery of the Monk character. He's supposed to have OCD which makes him a good detective. He's not supposed to be insane.

This is the first time Monk has acted like a silly, loony idiot. I'll never look at the character the same way again. He's been a borderline joke for 2-3 seasons now, but he's an official joke after this episode. We've really come to Monk talking to an imaginary friend? Why didn't he just go unconscious and talk to Trudy, like he usually does? Because that wouldn't be silly and move the plot. Oh wait, the "imaginary Dr. Bell" thing didn't even move the plot. It served no purpose at all other than to make Monk look silly and stupid.

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Ok, anyone that's been on a sub can you answer this? Aren't the ballast tanks outside the interior skin of a sub? Would you really have a door to the tank accessible from inside the sub? And with cool EL lights on the wall to boot.

That was the only part of the episode that seemed silly to me. I though Monk's coping mechanism was actually well done.

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Ballast tanks are accessable but not as was shown in the show. Access is by a large plate which is sealed by a good 30 or so large bolts (I was in the Navy for 6 years) that would have to be undone first. There would be no lights and also are rarely large enough for anyone to do anything but squat once inside.

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Also, Monk said he couldn't swim, but we have seen him swim at least twice - most recently in last year's finale when he faked his death by falling off a pier and swimming to shore. Bad continuity. Sigh.

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We have awfully high standards for Monk. We have to have a good mystery that he can solve in an hour minus commercials. We have to have Monk do his typical monkisms. We have to have the comedy, the relationships in place including Natalie to Monk, Randy, The Captain and the doctor all working in their spots in the show. We have to have the humor but it also has to be a good Sherlock Holmes caliber detective situation. If anything isn't just right, someone is disappointed. I felt that this episode hit 90% of those requirements. I liked seeing Natalie flirt which took her mind off of how nutty Monk was being. The imaginary doctor got a little old but it was fun when we got to see the doctor that only Monk could see. The crime was pretty ridiculous but who cares about that after all. If Monk were solving ordinary cases that happen in our towns each day, we wouldn't need the show for entertainment.

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How can you mention William Atherton as an S.O.B. without noting Ghostbusters?!?!?!?


"Yes, it's true. This man has no dick."

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Monk episodes used to be Monk trying to figure out two of the following three things: who the bad guy is, why the bad guy did it, and how the bad guy did it. Now it's gone to being just ONE of those three things, and usually just the last one - HOW the bad guy did it. We know who it is within the first few minutes, and we're quickly given a motive.

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Worst Monk yet. From the fake looking submarine to that horrible admission of guilt at the end. Bad all the way around.

But I still love ya Monk!

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