From ljknews at mac.com Fri Jan 2 17:55:08 2009 From: ljknews at mac.com (ljknews) Date: Fri, 02 Jan 2009 17:55:08 -0500 Subject: [Squaredancing] Mass Media - Mr. Monk Visits a Farm In-Reply-To: <494449C7.6000303@ARRL.NET> References: <494449C7.6000303@ARRL.NET> Message-ID: My wife and I do not subscribe to Cable TV, and we make up for that every year or so by buying DVD seasons of "Monk". With our latest purchase we discovered that Season 5 Episode 14, "Mr. Monk Visits a Farm" has a square dance as a central part of the plot. It was originally transmitted over cable on February 9, 2007. The regular local square dance is crucial to the proof that the suspect could not have done it since he was at the dance at the time of the crime, in front of 50 witnesses. You will be relieved to know that it was the first square dance he had attended in 10 years, so he was not a "regular" square dancer. The bit player square dancer characters were all in fancy square dance clothing (but not the hero when he visited a subsequent square dance the following month to interview the witnesses regarding the presence of the suspect). The background choreography seemed like "real" MWSD, except that when the hero was dragged onto the floor it morphed into what I think of as being Virginia Reel or Contra moves, with one couple going down between two lines of other dancers (a good plot escape for the fact that the hero had no training). Aside reinforcing the rural image of square dancing, I believe no harm was done by this exposure. The hero was not having fun at the square dance, but this is a series about the hero not having fun ! -- Larry Kilgallen