Product Description Television's favorite defective detective returns to DVD to solve a new batch of baffling mysteries with his trademark wit, wisdom… and hand wipes. Join Emmy Award and Golden Globe winner Tony Shalhoub as the quirky obsessive-compulsive detective in all 16 brilliantly funny Second Season episodes of the widely acclaimed series, Monk. His extensive dossier of phobias may keep him from working on the police force, but Monk's not about to let that stop him from solving crimes. Accompanied by his loyal (and infinitely patient) assistant Sharona (Bitty Schram), by-the-book Captain Stottlemeyer (Ted Levine) and eager-to-please Lieutenant Randall Disher (Jason Gray-Stanford), Monk's unconventional methods may just be what's needed to crack some of San Francisco's most puzzling and unusual cases. Join "TV's most original sleuth ever" (Los Angeles Times) on all of his suspenseful Second Season adventures in the series that USA Today raves is "hilarious" and Entertainment Weekly proclaims as one of the "Top 10 Best Things on TV." Bonus Content: Disc 1: The Minds Behind Monk Disc 2: Disher (Jason Gray-Stanford) Character Profile Disc 3: Stottlemeyer (Ted Levine) Character Profile Disc 4: Precinct Tours with Jason-Gray Stanford Amazon.com Monk: Season Two finds the popular cable dramedy all the more satisfying and fun in its second year. Relationships between the series' core characters have (against all odds) actually deepened and sweetened, while the new whodunit storylines challenge obsessive-compulsive investigator hero Adrian Monk (Tony Shalhoub) in fresh and novel ways. There are no big changes, but there is more compassion, even friendship, exchanged between Monk and his former boss, Captain Leland Stottlemeyer (Ted Levine), and grudging admiration for the difficult private sleuth from Stottlemeyer's second-in-command, Lieutenant Disher (Jason Gray-Stanford). As for Monk's crucial bond with his long-suffering assistant, Sharona (Bitty Schram), well, nothing comes easier than before. On the other hand, Sharona continues to draw Monk out of his self-obsession by giving him someone to care about. Highlights include the strong season opener, "Mr. Monk Goes Back to School," starring Andrew McCarthy as a science teacher whom Monk instantly suspects of killing a colleague. (The latter's death was disguised as a suicide.) Monk's investigation leads him to take, with many pitfalls and funny moments, a post at the school as a substitute teacher. But the episode also demonstrates the series' increasing preference for mysteries that concern how a crime was committed rather than who did it. Also good is "Mr. Monk Goes to Mexico," in which Monk finds himself in a panic without bottled water while working alongside two south-of-the-border equivalents (in looks and personality) of Stottlemeyer and Disher. "Mr. Monk Meets the Playboy" stars Gary Cole as a girlie-mag publisher who blackmails the chivalrous Monk by acquiring, and threatening to print, old topless photos of Sharona. One of the season's best shows, "Mr. Monk and the Paperboy," finds the fastidious, orderly detective in a major freakout when his own home becomes a crime scene. Still a comic joy and still stimulating for mystery buffs, Monk: Season Two is highly recommended. Among appealing guest stars are Rachel Dratch, Glenne Headley, Tim Curry, and John Turturro as Monk's Mycroft-like brother. --Tom Keogh

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