• Exercising the "Sarah Chalke Clause" in his 'Til Death contract, Brad Garrett has signed on to appear in Monk's July 18 season premiere. He'll play a handyman who helps Tony Shalhoub with his home renovations.

http://community.tvguide.com/blog-entry/TVGuide-Editors-Blog/Ausiello-Report/Ausiello-Casting-Scoops/800040303

This should be a great episode

This episode is coming up as Monk returns on Friday, July 18 -- Monk is one of the few current shows that I watch and I can hardly wait!!

what the heck is a "Sarah Chalke Clause" - does that mean he'll get her if he does the guest spot?

This episode is coming up as Monk returns on Friday, July 18 -- Monk is one of the few current shows that I watch and I can hardly wait!!

Me too, although I think this will be the episode where they deal with the loss of Dr. Kroger, so it might be hard to watch. However, I'm excited that Hector has been cast as the new shrink. He's a great actor. I loved him in Pretty Woman!

Andrea

Dr. Kroger will certainly be missed, however I agree that they've made a good decision for the new doctor! It'll be interesting to see how Monk relates to him.

And to see how Brad Garrett fits into the storyline -- innocent bystander, victim or villain??

do you know if they are going to repeat the season Premire

do you know if they are going to repeat the season Premire

I'm sure they will, if you mean run multiple viewings of it. Usually they air each episode at least four times during the week. I'm sure they'll do the premiere at it's regular time and then show it again late at night. That's one thing I like about USA and Monk. If you miss it once (or really loved it), you can always watch it again!

Andrea

The premiere episode of Monk repeats tomorrow (Saturday) afternoon.

The show tonight was both funny and serious -- I thought the writers did a wonderful job of writing for Tony Shalhoub Brad Garrett and Hector Elizondo while doing a tribue to Stanley Kamel -- it's an episode worth seeing.

Good episode, Garrett was very good also.

I hate to say it, but I absolutely hated this episode. I don't like Brad Garrett (never liked "Everybody Loves Raymond") and this show had hardly any humor in it at all. The tribute to Dr. Kroger was nice, but I would have devoted more airtime to it, and kind of made it the focus of the episode, kinda like what they did on "8 Simple Rules." Adrian (Monk) was so out of character here. Maybe he was grieving over Dr. Kroger's passing, but he would never allow someone in his house to absolutely destroy it! I really think it would have been better to show Adrian getting the news about Dr. Kroger, rather than just mentioning him in passing.

In all fairness, though I think they filmed this episode not too long after Stanley Kammel (Dr. Kroger) died so I'm sure it was hard on everyone.

I haven't been too happy with the way this season is shaping up so far and that's sad because this is my favorite show (that's currently on the air)!

Andrea