What makes 'Monk' tic? Bigger budget, brighter stars
By Bill Keveney, USA TODAY

After strong ratings and a Golden Globe award, Monk, the obsessive-compulsive detective series, needn't have any irrational fears about its TV future.
The USA Network comedy was the highest-rated original scripted series in basic-cable history. It enters its second season Friday (10 p.m. ET/PT) with a production budget increase, a growing coterie of well-known guest stars and a new theme written and sung by Oscar winner Randy Newman.

Last season was filmed in Toronto; the 16-episode second season is being shot in Los Angeles, where it is receiving a nearly 20% boost to its $1.5
million-per-episode budget and better access to talent by virtue of being in TV's capital city.

"We wanted to try to elevate the production value," executive producer David Hoberman says. (The writing staff, headed by Andy Breckman, is in New Jersey.)

Monk rapidly gained a following after July's premiere, helped first by an unusual deal in which ABC repeated episodes after their cable run and then by the comedy
Golden Globe awarded to star Tony Shalhoub. ABC has not decided whether it will rerun second-season episodes.

In a cop genre crowded with CSI-style process shows, Monk veers toward character, focusing on the investigative brilliance and paralyzing fears of quirky Adrian Monk (Shalhoub). Now a police consultant, he lost his job on the San Francisco police force when obsessive-compulsive disorder kicked in after his wife's car-bombing death.

In the premiere which features a guest turn by Andrew McCarthy, Monk investigates a death at his late wife's high school.

Monk's other three regulars all return, including Sharona Fleming (Bitty Schram), Monk's street-smart nurse and investigative helper; police Capt. Leland
Stottlemeyer (Ted Levine), who relies on Monk as a consultant but envies his abilities; and Stottlemeyer's subordinate, Lt. Randall Disher (Jason
Gray-Stanford). (New viewers can watch a repeat of Monk's two-hour pilot Friday at 11 a.m. ET/PT.)

They will be joined by a growing Monk family that includes:

• Amy Sedaris (Strangers With Candy) as Sharona's actress sister, Gail, who faces a possible murder charge when a co-star dies on stage (Aug. 1). She
appeared in a first-season episode.

• Betty Buckley (Cats; Eight Is Enough), who plays Sharona and Gail's mother. Her sometimes contentious relationship with Sharona, who thinks Mom loves her
sister best, is put on hold when they must help Gail (Aug. 1).

"It's just a coincidence that we're in the theater" for the episode, Broadway veteran Buckley says. "I thought it was pretty funny."

• Glenne Headly (Dick Tracy, ER) as the uptight Stottlemeyer's free-spirited wife, Karen, a documentary filmmaker and yoga devotee (July 25).

Monk also will get a visit from a brother, not yet cast, who is both smarter and more troubled.

The guest stars, who each will make one appearance but could return, were attracted by Shalhoub — "I'm a huge fan of Tony's," Sedaris says — and Monk's quality.

"The characters are quite full and have a lot of idiosyncrasies," Headly says. "That leaves the door open for other characters to come in."

Shalhoub is excited about his guest stars and thrilled by another addition, Newman's It's a Jungle Out There.  The theme song worries about poisons in the air and
water and warns: "You'd better pay attention, or this world we love so much might just kill you."

"There's a certain thing Newman has, it's the dark and mournful sound, and there's this tongue-in-cheek, darkly humorous side. It completely fits the tone of
the show," Shalhoub says.

Other elements remain constant. Monk still struggles with OCD: "For every two steps forward, he takes three backward," Shalhoub says.

Although a spark between Sharona and Disher is a possibility, Hoberman says, don't look for the complex relationship between Monk and Sharona to take a
romantic turn. They may act like a couple at times, but they won't be falling into each other's arms.

"We definitely have good chemistry. I think that would ruin it," Schram says.