MovieChat Forums > Monk (2002) Discussion > Something I don't get

Something I don't get


The show started at 2002, so how comes
It seems like the events are taking place during the 90's? They use cassettes instead of DVDs, they never use the internet or have cell phones and a bunch of other stuff I've noticed which I can't recall at the moment. Isn't it weird?

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I think it's because Monk is very old fashioned, and doesn't like technology, and is probably kind of afraid of it. Monk doesn't have a cell phone, but everyone else on the show does, and I'm sure everyone else uses the internet besides Monk as well.

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I didn't convert from VCR to DVD until around 2004, so...

I think Sharona had a cell phone in season 1, as did the Captain,and Randy. Also, Randy had TiVo and mp3's like the rest of the world.

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sharona owned a cell phone...since first episode!
also tony in the episode called Mr. Monk and the Other Woman (01x07) used a personal cellphone(perhaps owned by sharona, i'm not sure)

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That might have been an anomaly, because he doesn't seem used to using them. When he tried to use Natalie's phone, he had trouble even answering it.

In "Other Woman", Maybe Monk had his own cell phone, and didn't normally use it, but did this time because Sharona didn't have a good feeling about his staying with Monica.

Randy said he just talked to Sharona, maybe he called her home #, and she said that Monk had her cell. But it seemed that the department communicated with Monk through his assistants, so if Monk had Sharona's phone, Randy should have called that number first. When Randy suggested to Captain Stottlemeyer that they call Monk because he was at Monica's house, then he would have been calling Sharona's number?

This is why Monk should not have his own phone...it just confuses people.

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I still use my beta max...

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Consumers don't usually embrace new technology overnight. They were still making cars with cassette decks in them in the mid 2000's.

It also depends on the type of technology. For example, I'd imagine that more people converted from VHS to DVD than have from DVD to Blu Ray.

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I was still watching mainly VHS tapes until about 2003 when I got a cheap DVD player. Even then I still had a combo VHS/TV so I could still watch my old videos.

I didn't have a cellphone until 2004,when I turned 18,and it was a tracphone at that. Later I had a regular flip phone,and then the original razor flip phone in 2006 until 2009 when I got a blackberry.

I didn't have an android until 2012 and I got the S2 right after the S3 came out.

All of that said, some people don't just jump on the newest technology.

I really see no reason to upgrade to blu-ray especially when I can still buy DVD.

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I had blu-ray on my Acer laptop. It also had a fingerprint login (which almost never worked).

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I recently re-watched 'Mr. Monk and the Buried Treasure'. A cell phone is prominently featured in it.

And I believe characters (who are not Monk himself) communicate by cell phone quite often, and we the audience fail to notice as it's something so commonplace to us, we just don't notice. Unless it's part of the procedural element of a show, we just don't put the required level of attention in.

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another obvious example in which Adrian uses a phone is in "Mr. Monk Gets Stuck in Traffic" 03x13..
i think he was using a samsung V200 cellphone!
this__>http://cdn2.gsmarena.com/vv/pics/samsung/sav200_01.jpg

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He also answers Sharona's phone in Gets Married. "Can't talk now. I'm trapped in a cave."

It might just be his preference to not have a cell phone. Maybe there is some social anxiety involved, and it's easier to have the assistant there to screen calls, arrange business, etc.

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It might just be his preference to not have a cell phone.


This is most likely it. I have a friend now, in 2015, who does own a cell phone, but doesn't, as he puts it, "live by it". In other words, he treats it like a land line phone. He never texts or uses it for internet and his phone never leaves his house. Ever.

Monk, already having a landline, may see no point at all in a cell phone and if he did have one, would probably do just this - treat it as a landline.

💡There is no movie in Ba Sing Se💡

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I have a friend now, in 2015, who does own a cell phone, but doesn't, as he puts it, "live by it". In other words, he treats it like a land line phone. He never texts or uses it for internet and his phone never leaves his house.


I know several people who got a cell phone primarily so they wouldn't have to get a new landline every time they moved and/or because they were fed up with the phone company. Some of them text, etc., but to others (like your friend) their cell phones are just their phones.

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Another thing that stands out: in Mr. Monk and the Blackout (Season 3), when Monk is instructing Sharona on the VCR , he uses the words, Play, Fast Forward, Freeze Frame. etc.

In 100th Case (Season 7), when he's instructing Natalie on the DVR he uses the phrase: Picture Freezer, Picture Go Back, Picture Go Fast, Picture Go Regular...etc.

What happened?

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[deleted]

I forget which episode it was, but Monk was using a computer's slide out DVD disc drive as a coffee cup holder and he used one of my favorite Monkisms, "I LOL'd out loud."

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It was episode 5.15, when Monk started using Julie's laptop and had no clue what he was doing. He sent the FBI, Stottlemeyer and Disher to a house where Julie was at a slumber party. In the mobile crime lab, Monk destroyed a plasma TV by using hydrochloric acid and wrote on the screen with a permanent marker.

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Nobody but Monk himself is behind in technology. Remember when Julie helped him set up email and said "welcome to 1998?" I never got a 90's feel with the show. Everything seemed in tune with the very early 2000's.

In your house I long to be
Room by room, patiently

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I think she was saying that, because that's when nearly everyone else went onto the internet for the first time.

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I know that. That's what I was saying. 

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Was it?

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Yes; is my comment not written clearly enough or something? I said nobody else but monk is behind in technology, hence Julie's crack about welcoming him to 1998. I'm not sure what's difficult here.

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No need to apologize.

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Well this has been fun.

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Monk's "world" stopped in 1997 with Trudy's murder. Monk is "stuck" in 1997 plus, there is no tech in his house, TV, PC, etc,,,,part of the OCD.

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That actually makes a lot of sense. It also works with Julie's off the cuff.

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