Reviews

I love a good medical drama but I wish for once they kept the romance between coworkers to a minimum. I'm not a medical professional in any way but I doubt that half of the stuff that goes on here happens in real life. One thing that hits too close to home and happens WAY TOO OFTEN in this show is the doctors defying patients ( or next of kin's ) express wishes.

The medical conditions are always extremely rare -- some ( a daughter that feels the pain someone else is experiencing; a wife that doesn't recognize her husband as her husband; ) I would need more convincing before I buy their legitimacy.

I do like the Dr Charles (Oliver Platt) character and the way he sees things no one else is necessarily seeing.

Right around the time of this episode, Bitsy Schram and two other supporting cast members were in the middle of trying to re-negotiate their contracts. I believe this episode was updated so the cast members in question were not needed while the searched for a new Sharona. They used Dorfman and had the show take place in LA instead of San Francisco, explaining that Sharona was out of town. Bitsy had only one more episode after this (the episodes were re-ordered or already finished (??)) as her final episode. There was no send off for her. She was just gone. She was the sacrificial lamb to get the other two supporting cast members back in line.

The episode itself was okay except for the missing cast members. They were pretty good about bringing in Monk's in-laws in a touching manner. His father in law is the producer of a game show in which he is sure the contestant is cheating but he can't figure out how. There is a murder of course. The contestant in question found out about the murder and blackmailed the host of the show into going along with the cheating.

I was never a fan of Dorfman so I would consider his part in the show as a negative.

Reversing the roles so Mary is the head of the building and loan had problems. A board naming a woman in the 1940's to running the Bailey Building and loan is a stretch in that error. The whole Mr Gower scene was a bit of a stretch. She just happened to be there to see what he was doing. Mr Gower hitting a little girl just doesn't play as well has him hitting the boy in 1910's. George Hatch coming on to her in the she didn't exist world ... no. I think it would have played better if he were just in an unhappy marriage without children. Marlo Thomas didn't play the part with the same emotion that Jimmy Stewart did. Being a woman, I think she should have been showing even more emotion!.

I think a woman playing the lead could be done, but I think the script needed to be reworked more to make it work.