The ‘Monk’ Movie Brings TV’s Favorite Germaphobe Into the COVID Era

Quick, without looking it up, answer this question: How long ago did Monk’s series finale air?

It may seem like the show never left, given all it inspired. Debuting on USA in 2002, Monk’s light-hearted, character-driven detective stories were a progenitor to what came to be known as the network’s “characters welcome”/“blue sky” era. By the end of the decade, USA was filling multiple nights of primetime with the kind of low-stakes genre shows the major networks were largely abandoning. As ABC, NBC, CBS, and Fox tried shifting to darker, edgier dramas, USA countered with Psych, Burn Notice, Royal Pains, White Collar, and the recently rediscovered Suits. If it was fast-paced and fun, you could find it on USA.

Believe it or not, Monk took its final bow on December 4, 2009, right as the “blue sky” wave was rising. Granted, it’s been in syndication ever since—a staple of the likes of Cozi TV and Hallmark Movies & Mysteries—but the show is still frozen in time, further back than you might think. The world has changed a lot since the Monk finale. Smartphones and social media were in their infancy when the series ended. Barack Obama had only been president for a year. COVID-19 was a decade away.

Read more at The Daily Beast.