The trouble with cable-series addictions is that the fixes are too
few and far between.

Fans of Sex and the City have been waiting since September for
Sunday's premiere. The Sopranos last sang in December, and now it
looks as if the show won't return until March — or later.

Monk
(out of four)
USA, Friday, 10 p.m. ET/PT

In some ways, the waiting has been even harder for those of us who
fell in love with Monk. It's not every year a TV detective comes
along who can take his place in the pantheon alongside Peter Falk's
Columbo or David Suchet's Hercule Poirot. So you can't blame us if
last summer's 13-week run left us wanting more.

Tonight, Adrian Monk is back, and in Tony Shalhoub's masterful hands
he's as humorous and humane as ever. Monk is an icon for the damaged:
a man who has been battered by fate and beset by phobias but who
refuses to let crimes go unsolved. Or pictures go unstraightened.

The "who" in Friday's "whodunit" is readily apparent to us and to
Monk: A married teacher (guest star Andrew McCarthy) murders his
mistress, who had threatened to expose their affair. The question is:
How did the teacher do it when he was in class at the moment his
girlfriend fell from the school's clock tower?

It would have to be a tower, just to torture a detective who is
afraid of heights. "It's not my worst nightmare," Monk says. "It's
fourth or fifth. I didn't bring the list with me." Little does he
know a worse nightmare lies ahead: undercover work as a substitute
teacher.

When his obsessions or compulsions get the better of him, Monk can
turn to Sharona, played by the indispensable Bitty Schram. No matter
the scene, Schram conveys just the right combination of exasperation
and compassion, torturing Monk when it suits her but springing to his
defense if anyone else dares slight him.

Still, if you're watching Monk, you're watching for Shalhoub. A
lesser actor might have made Monk a ridiculous figure. Shalhoub gives
us a fully rounded character, as astute as he is strange, as
sympathetic as he is annoying. From the outside, Monk's phobias can
be funny (never more so than when he's covered in chalk dust). But
Shalhoub makes sure we remember how heartbreaking they are to Monk.

In truth, Shalhoub and Schram are so entertaining together, the
writers sometimes seem to haphazardly fill the plot in around them.
It'd be nice to see a few trickier mysteries populated by a few more
suspects.

But hey, we can wait. If there's one thing you learn from cable
series, it's patience