Monk (2002) - 248 mistakes in entire show

Continuity: Season 8, "Happy Birthday Mr. Monk": When Monk pulls all his drapes shut, there's a wide gap in the right hand set that's letting at least five inches of bright sunlight through. No one has touched them again, but when Natalie goes to open the drapes a few moments later, the gap has completely closed itself.

Plot hole: It makes no sense why the police haven't done the most obvious thing and checked for fingerprints on the murder weapon (the knife). It would not only back up the detective's claim that he did not stab the victim (he never touched the knife) but would have given the police a major clue to finding and prosecuting the murderer.

Other: Kitty, the killer, is seen running to Gitomer after Lt. Kirk leaves him. She is supposedly running to stab him, but you can see that both of her hands are empty as she dashes to his side.

Factual error: The woman who accuses Monk of stealing her necklace shouldn't have the necklace inside the asylum in the first place. For both safety and insurance reasons, patients in mental facilities aren't permitted to keep any potentially harmful jewelry, including pins, broaches, earrings, belts, beads and necklaces.

Continuity: It's Spring in San Fransisco in this episode: warm with light rain and people outside in shirtsleeves. That is, until Monk goes to visit Kelly, when it suddenly becomes Winter. Everyone's bundled in heavy coats and it's sleeting. After Monk leaves Kelly's house, it becomes Spring again.

Continuity: In the opening scene, the man with the date pulls the gun on the mugger with his right hand and fires one shot. The camera angle changes as the remaining shots are fired and he now has the gun in his left hand and is standing in a completely different stance. During the recap of the crime at the end of the episode, it shows him firing all the shots with his right hand.

Continuity: When Sharona is having dinner at the restaurant and asks her date, "Have you ever been married?", she puts down her drink and lets go of it. When the shot changes she is putting the glass down again and holding on. In the third shot her arms are folded.

Continuity: Sharona tells her sister that Monk needs the guest room because he "doesn't sleep on couches," but in "Mr. Monk and the Marathon Man," she had to stop him from taking a nap on the victim's couch.

Audio problem: Sharona and Benjy are forbidden access to their damaged apartment building. The policeman tells them to call a certain emergency number, but when he says this, his lips aren't moving.

Continuity: After the quake, all but one of the art pieces have fallen out of the Rutherford's display case and lie shattered on the floor. But seconds later, when Christine pushes the cabinet over, most of the broken items have vanished from the floor.

Continuity: When Sharona and her sister are talking on the couch, her sister is playing with her hair when she asks "Are you in love with anybody?" The shot changes to Sharona answering from over her sister's shoulder and her sister's hand is in a fist and pressed against her head.

Revealing: In the scene where a man is streaking, he is carefully made to look naked. But when he is running through the park, there is one shot where you can see some black underwear.

Continuity: In the scene where Willie Nelson is rehearsing, his pigtails change position depending on the shot.

Continuity: In the closing scene with Willie Nelson, there are a few times when the clarinet music changes notes, yet Monk's fingers do not move. There is also one point where Monk takes a breath mid-note.

Continuity: Before meeting Willie Nelson on his tour bus, Monk is outside the radio station. When a car comes past the shot shows from inside the car and we see Monk putting his right hand up to his forehead and touching it. In the next shot his hand is now further down his face and is not touching it anymore.

Continuity: When Monk is leaving Derek Philby's classroom, he is quite content to just pick up a piece of chalk (with his bare hands) to write on the blackboard, but earlier, he makes sure to use a chalk holder to do this and nearly has a panic attack when he gets chalk dust on himself.

Deliberate "mistake": When Monk is first teaching his class, the class goes for less than 10 minutes.

Continuity: At the school tower murder scene, Randy's coat is buttoned up over his tie, but changes suddenly when Stottlemeyer says, "OK, bring him up." The coat is immediately unbuttoned and open all the way in the very next shot.

Other: When Monk is leaving Derek Philby's classroom, he dots the "I" in "REMINDER" on the blackboard. However, the word was in capital letters, so the "I" needn't have been dotted. Monk wouldn't make this mistake. (And the word is written in plain block sans-serif letters, so he's not adding a missing line: he's definitely dotting the capital I.)

Plot hole: Monk and Sharona drive to San Marcos, a Spring Break resort town in Mexico. At the border, they're pulled over by Mexican authorities for a Customs inspection. Such inspections are performed on the US side of the border, but during the search, it's made clear that not only are they already in Mexico - they're also, conveniently, already in San Marcos. Spring Break resorts like this one, with pools, hotels, etc., aren't located at the border.

Visible crew/equipment: In the scene where Captain Stotlemeyer is putting one of the large snakes back in the glass container, he turns and the base of his wireless microphone is visible when his jacket gets bunched up.

Factual error: When Stottlemeyer backs up the video tape at Monk's house, we can hear the sound chattering backwards. Only a huge industrial (studio) machine would do that. Little home VCRs, like Monk's, mute the sound during in-play rewind and fast forward modes.

Continuity: In the cemetery scene, Stottlemeyer approaches the grave of the 17 year old open case hit and run victim. The dates on his grave are 1980-1997. But in Dennis Gammill's confession letter in the end, it says he killed the boy in December 1998.

Deliberate "mistake": All the mail bombs are delivered in packages tied with knotted string. The USPO hasn't allowed string-tied packages since the mid-90s (they get caught in automated equipment), but since the knots were crucial to ID-ing the suspect in this episode, that fact had to be ignored.

Continuity: When Monk spills the potted plant and grabs a vacuum cleaner from the hall, he's holding the handle with several large paper towels. When he plugs the vacuum in, he now has a wipe in his hand instead. When he's finished plugging in and turns around, the wipe has vanished and there's nothing in his hands or on the vacuum. But when we cut to a wider shot as he turns the vacuum on, the paper towels reappear on the handle.

Continuity: Dexter places the sapphire necklace on Amber at a completely crooked angle. When the shot cuts, though, it has instantly straightened and centered itself.

Other: In the scene where Mr.Babcock is murdering the woman in the cinema, we see the woman has a big bucket of popcorn. As he starts strangling her, only a small amount of popcorn falls out. When the camera turns toward the floor there is a lot more popcorn on the floor and it it is spread right across the screen.

Continuity: When Monk says "I can bench 200", you can tell he has his arms by his sides, but in the next shot, his hands are held up at the level of his waist.

Deliberate "mistake": When Sharona spots Disher's personal ad in the newspaper, there is a shot of it. She then reads the description of him from the ad, which matches what's on the screen, however, the second part she reads, "Seeks petite blond with no-nonsense attitude, kids ok" is not in the ad shown.

Continuity: When Van Rankin shoots his wife, the black gym bag, which has been slung over his shoulder since he entered the kitchen, disappears between shots.

Continuity: When Van Rankin takes the borrowed flour from his kitchen counter and hands it to Sharona, it's in a standard paper flour sack, and the counter is clean. Later, there's flour dust on the counter and the impression of a large, round flour tin - like the one in Monk's kitchen - instead of an imprint of the paper sack.

Factual error: In this episode, when Sharona and Monk arrive to visit his brother, they talk about the swing set. Monk tells Sharona that his father put up the swing when he was 8 years old but this is a much newer swing set. Look at the curved plastic seats: these have come about in the last six to eight years. It also doesn't look at all rusty like a 40 year old swing would.

Continuity: The blood stains on Brad Terry's sweatshirt change positions after he runs back into the house. A few shots later, they're suddenly so faint they're barely visible at all anymore. Blood stains don't fade, at least not in just a few minutes.

Continuity: In this episode Randy is allergic to cats, in fact he has an allergic reaction even if a cat has been there lately but is not there now. But in Mr. Monk and the Sleeping Suspect, during the scene where Monk and the police are investigating the woman's destroyed house, a cat passes within a few feet of Randy, who doesn't sneeze or show any signs of his allergy.

Factual error: The SFPD fails twice to trace the kidnapper's call because he isn't on the line long enough, a plot holdover from old movies and the days before digital & computer technology. Phone calls have been instantaneously traceable since the 1970s. There's a line tossed in claiming that they need 45 seconds if it's a cell phone, but this is still bogus: 45 seconds would not be required to triangulate a cell phone's location. Computers can do that instantly by "pinging" the phone and its transmitting tower.

Continuity: In the pre-credits sequence, when Glenne and Ted are fighting, Glenne attaches a clip to the right side of his shirt, but a few seconds later, there is none on his right side. They are all on his left side. They also disappear and reappear.

Continuity: In the scene where Sharona returns the dog, she opens the gate, turns around and closes & latches the gate. They even make a point of showing the latched gate before she is on the porch. As she is talking to the owner, you see the gate behind her open and then closed between shots. She had latched it, so all scenes should have shown it latched.

Visible crew/equipment: When Ted Levine and Glenne Headly are fighting in the pre-credits sequence, a crew member is visible in the car's side window in the left of one shot.

Deliberate "mistake": Joshua Skinner hid a fortune in gold by melting it down, mixing it with ink and writing it into 947 journals. Monk's producer concedes that in real life, 947 journals would probably hold "only about $11 worth" of gold-laced ink. But the idea was so amusing that he couldn't resist using it anyway.

Continuity: When Stottlemeyer and Disher are interviewing the fat guy in the bed, in the scene where the fat guy says "Is that a bagel?", Disher's bagel keeps changing size as the camera angle switches, getting bigger and smaller.

Continuity: A fight breaks out in the prison laundry, and Monk crawls into a giant dryer to hide, pulling the door mostly shut after him. But in the very next shot of the fight raging on, the dryer door is visible in the background - wide open. Next shot after that, it's shut again, and Monk sneaks it open to peek out.

Continuity: The large blue Nazi/Swastika tattoo on the left side of the head Nazi's neck changes from being neat and symmetrical to uneven during the course of the episode. This is most noticeable when comparing the exercise-yard "you stole the watch" scene to the black-and-white "solving the case" flashback scene.

Continuity: In the scene where the two guys are playing chess, the guy with the black hat knocks over the chess pieces after losing. He then starts scrambling up the pieces and leaving his hands near the chess board. When the shot changes to a wide shot of Monk walking away the guy suddenly has his hands on his head.

Audio problem: The .22 caliber shots would be a higher pitch.

Continuity: When Monk is lost in the street crowd after getting pushed into the subway car, his left shirt collar is sticking up over his coat. It's still up when he puts his hands to his head, but is tucked neatly back in in the next shot, though he still has both hands on his head. A few seconds later, it's the right collar flap that's sticking out instead.

Continuity: Whilst Randy and Sharona are in the kitchen feeding the monkey you can see near the start of the shot that Randy has his right arm leaning against the kitchen counter top. In the next shot his arms are suddenly folded.

Audio problem: When Darwin is screaming at the bald landlord, his mouth isn't always moving.

Revealing: In the scene where Darwin and Monk are in the kitchen and Monk calls Dr.Kroger. Darwin pulls the phone out of the wall, but there is no line from the phone to the jack in the wall.

Revealing: Throughout the episode, the panic room door is made to look metal. But later when a hole is cut in the door, you can easily tell by looking through the hole that it is wood.

Plot hole: After Monk has accidentally pushed the close button on the panic room door, Captain Stottlemeyer tries to guide Monk to pushing the open button on the wall. After a couple of minutes the captain puts his hand through the hole to open the door. The scene doesn't make sense, however. Stottlemeyer makes no attempt through the whole scene to try and open the door up for Monk, who is having trouble with the locked room. He can see the buttons and would easily be able to see he could reach it or at least try to reach it.

Continuity: Darwin the chimp pulls a large blue bowl from Monk's kitchen cupboard and throws it on the floor, breaking it. We cut to a close-up of Darwin spinning, then pull back as he starts pulling out glasses - and the blue bowl is back on the shelf, intact. When the angry landlord enters, Darwin pulls the same bowl from a different shelf and throws it again.

Deliberate "mistake": All the dishes that are usually neatly arranged in Monk's kitchen cupboards (pots, pans, stacks of plates etc.) have been replaced here by cheap plastic ware, so that Darwin the chimp can pull them all out and throw them. Though we hear shattering-glass sound effects as they supposedly hit the floor, the dishes Darwin bangs together and throws are very obviously plastic.

Visible crew/equipment: During the police investigation at the power station, the shiny blue construction helmets show us the stage lights, reflectors, camera and film crew several times.

Deliberate "mistake": As Monk is using the night vision goggles in his house the lights suddenly come back on and continues on still thinking that the intruder cannot see him. The light coming on should have blinded him or at the very least he should have been able to tell there was more light than before even if he hadn't had much experience using the goggles. All the lights in the house come back on and the amount of light would be too noticeable with night vision. This would have been deliberate as Monk continues to think the intruder still doesn't see him in the dark and is part of the joke in the scene.

Plot hole: While convenient to the plot, the computer system used by the medical examiner is far too poor to be taken seriously for a high level agency. While Monk is unaware of deleting the files on the computer, why would there be a one button push to delete all the files on working cases? Even to not have some sort of password to delete files is questionable, as most systems in offices and workplaces will only have functions like this for administrators, executives etc. We find out that all the files are backed up and are slowly being recovered. However, these types of systems are primarily for emergency scenarios such as fire, flooding and so forth. With the ease that Monk is able to delete the files by accident, it seems a bit hard to believe how easy it is to do.

Factual error: As Monk is removing the crumbs off the keyboard, he flicks one crumb away from the backspace key. It gets flicked up and lands near the 0 button on the numeric keypad. Yet when this happens, the screen then says "Do you want to delete files?" as if he hit the delete button.

Continuity: In the opening scene, the orange-and-white scarf that Paul Harley uses to blindfold Lorissa changes positions and color patterns repeatedly between shots as he escorts her from the pool to the garage.

Continuity: In the scene where Monk meets Salvatore Lucarelli (Philip Baker Hall), Lucarelli is cutting up fisheads on a cutting board. Throughout the scene the fish on the table constantly change between shots. One of the notable changes is when Lucarelli is discussing the case he has for monk there is a shot of a fish, and when the shot changes you can now see the fish's head has all of a sudden been chopped off.

Continuity: About midway through, the new nurse is sitting on Monk's kitchen counter eating a sandwich. She puts the sandwich down on a plate as she hops off, the shot switches to another angle to include Monk as she walks away, and the sandwich has suddenly jumped off the plate and is now lying on the counter a few feet away. Neither of them had time to pick it up or move it.

Visible crew/equipment: Nurse Davis swings open Disher's car door at the end, and captures a reflection of the camera and the entire film crew standing nearby.

Continuity: Whilst Monk is being introduced to the long standing winner on the show a stagehand is adjusting the microphone on his jacket with both hands. As he says "Are you almost done?" the shot changes and the stagehand is just using his left arm to adjust it. The stagehand then pulls his arm away but the next shot he is adjusting the mic again and using both hands to do it. It keeps changing throughout the rest of the scene.

Continuity: When Monk is telling Dwight how the guys are cheating, he holds the green sachet with one hand, but in the next shot, he is holding it with two.

Continuity: When Monk enters Trudy's parent's house and then walks upstairs and considers opening up Trudy's old bedroom door, the door shown has hinges on the right / door knob on the left. At the end of the show when Monk walks into Trudy's old bedroom, the door shown also has hinges on the right / door knob on the left, but it's shot from inside the room, so the door is on the wrong side.

Visible crew/equipment: When the armored car is being robbed, the camera pans to the left just before Highsmith is about to kill the driver. During this pan, the reflection of the cameraman is visible on the side of the armored car.

Continuity: During Monk and Sharona's race to the armored car robbery scene, the red Mustang's rear-view mirror disappears. When they arrive, though, it's back in place on the windshield.

Continuity: In Stottlemeyer's hospital room, a medicated Monk finishes off the leftover pudding from the food tray. Then, while he's talking to them, the pudding smeared on his upper lip disappears and reappears between shots.

Continuity: In the scene where Monk is eating dinner, he spills tomato sauce on his shirt, but in the next shot his shirt is clean.

Factual error: When Julie's teacher is searching the name 'Larry Tilburn', he isn't typing into a search engine, virtual encyclopedia, or anything of the type, the computer just shows a blue screen with a popup message in the middle.

Continuity: At the science fair, after the 'bad guy' lights the poster on fire he puts the Bunsen burner onto the table a little away from its original position but when the camera angle changes it is back where it originally was, under the beaker and stand.

Continuity: When Natalie puts out the fire with the extinguisher, the nozzle is still pushed down when she uses it, but when she puts it on the table, in the next shot the nozzle is fully extended. There are a number of times during the scene, when Monk is trying to figure out how to use it, where the nozzle's position keeps changing between shots.

Continuity: Monk empties a pocketful of pushpins onto the science teacher's counter top. One rolls to the very edge, separate from the others. A few minutes later, the stray pin is missing. Just before Monk and Natalie leave, however, it reappears on the counter edge.

Factual error: The guy who put the moonrock into Julie's tank replaced it with an exact replica, but he was never alone with the moonrock long enough to make a replica.

Continuity: After Monk has been found in the coffin, Natalie and the captain comment on his smiling and the camera shows the candle has melted down all over Monk's hand. Then when the camera comes in closer, the candle is whole again and monk's expression has changed a little from the previous shot.

Continuity: After Stottlemeyer says "Well I'm gonna make the most of it" (when he is talking to Monk in the backyard of the cabin and Monk is cleaning) he looks a little to his left and opens a beer can while his mouth is shut. In the next shot he is looking in a different direction and is smiling a toothy grin.

Other: When Stottlemeyer is about to eat his cake he is looking at Monk. Shortly before he starts to pick up a piece of cake you can see he is pretending to chew a piece in his mouth. Throughout the scene you can see Stottlemeyer's face and the cake. At no point before he pretends to chew does he put a piece in his mouth.

Factual error: Randy calls the cabin and gets a "not in service" message. But he should have heard an unanswered ring instead. The FBI agent tore the cord from the wall, which in the US does not generate a "not in service" recording. That only occurs when the phone company cuts off your service due to non-payment or cancellation.

Continuity: When Randy and his 'girlfriend' are having take-away (take-out) food, the girlfriend says, "Before he died, he said he's always look out for me". As she says this, her arms are resting on the table, but in the next shot her elbows are on the table and her hands are together just under her chin.

Continuity: In the scene where Stottlemeyer is smoking an cigar, the size of the cigar and the position of how he is holding it keeps changing from shot to shot.

Continuity: In the beginning of the episode when Ray Galardi is meeting with Steve Marriot the amount of sun between shots constantly changes between shots. One moment that is very noticeable is a shot of just Ray with the hill in the background and a lot of shade. After showing Steve it goes back to Ray and the sun is now very bright.

Factual error: Monk inspects the wrecked VW Beetle and notes that "the air conditioning is off." But it's a standard 1973 VW: they didn't come with A/C, and though you could add it, it tended to overstress the little air-cooled engine. Look closely and you can see that this VW does not have the bulky under-dash compressor needed to run an add-on A/C.

Continuity: The murderer picks up the victim's cell phone and puts it in front of his cell phone. Then later in the flashback the murderer had in the truck he puts the cell phone behind his own cell phone.

Continuity: Whilst Monk is talking with Natalie and Julie about halfway through the episode, Natalie asks Monk whether he helped Julie to find somewhere to go to the bathroom. When Julie says she has managed to hold on Monk says, "That's my girl" and is pointing his finger at her and then lowers his hand. In the next shot showing Natalie and Julie, he is still pointing at them.

Continuity: In the beginning of the episode, right after the hippie is murdered, the murderer puts him in the passenger side door of his VW Beetle and drives him up inside the dump-truck. The murderer puts him in the VW driver's seat, and walks around to the other side of the Beetle. This is all well and good, but, the dead guy's head switches positions from the time when the guy puts him in the car to the time he walks around and starts the engine.

Revealing: The VW Beetle that slides out of the dump truck and rolls over is noticeably not the same car the victim was driving earlier. It's a lighter color, and is already badly dented, even before it's wrecked.

Continuity: Throughout the highway driving sequence in the beginning, Natalie's rear view mirror disappears and reappears repeatedly.

Continuity: The murder victim has a dark green environmentalist flag attached to the left/driver's side of his VW Beetle. The flag disappears and reappears several times throughout the first 10 minutes of the episode.

Continuity: As Stottlemeyer steps off the stage, after singing, he is holding the microphone and pulls it down so that the top is pointed toward the floor but in shots following this, when he is talking to the woman, the microphone is back in an upright position.

Continuity: After Monk tells Randy to hit whilst playing Blackjack, the dealer gives him the Three of Spades. The dealer places it a bit to the right and over the Eight of Spades. The next shot we see of the cards the Three is now completely over the Eight and we can only see a bit of the bottom of the Eight.

Continuity: In the opening sequence, the uniformed cop who finds toddler Tommy holding the severed finger bends down and says, "What've you got there, big guy?" In full shot, the cop is bare-handed. But when we cut to a close-up in the middle of his line, he's suddenly wearing a latex glove.

Continuity: During Monk's therapy session, Dr. Kruger places his black folder on the arm of his chair. Every time the camera angle changes, the position of his right arm shifts from resting in his lap to lying on top of the folder.

Continuity: When Natalie props the get-well card up on Monk's bureau, it's partially open. The moment the shot cuts to a different angle, it's completely closed.

Continuity: When Monk and Natalie are talking to Kemp in his office, the desk ornament and the cup of pencils that Monk keeps organizing change positions between shots. In the shots from Monk's side of the desk, the ornament is closer to the door. In the shots from Kemp's side, the pencil cup is closer.

Continuity: When Monk is trying to join the two cops' conversation about football, in the shots from the side of the police car that they're standing near, the two cops are standing less than a foot apart. In the shots from the other side of the car, they're far apart enough for Monk, Natalie, and Captain Stottlemeyer to stand between them.

Continuity: Monk and Natalie question the landlady, Sylvia, about the missing guest. Every time the camera angle changes, Sylvia's arms change from being crossed in front of her to hanging loosely at her sides.

Continuity: When the Trudy impersonator is talking to Janice's father in the diner, the venetian blinds on the window to his left alternate between raised and lowered positions as the shots change.

Other: In the flashback where Monk is explaining how the money was stolen, the principal finds the 5 dollar bill he wrote "good luck" on and holds it up for everyone to see. The bill he holds is a modern day 5 dollar bill which were introduced in the past few years, with the enlarged Lincoln. The flashback takes place in the 70s.

Continuity: When the kids are standing in front of the lockers, one of them is holding Monk's clarinet. The position of the instrument in his hand keeps changing between shots, from bell-up to bell-down, then bell-up again.

Continuity: In the flashback scene of the kids in the school hallway, the autographed photo of Patty Duke disappears and reappears twice on the inside of Little Monk's locker door as the camera angles change.

Continuity: When Alice is in Stottlemeyer's office and Stottlemeyer can't find Terry's present, Alice says, "But what about..." indicates the bottle of port, and then drops her arms to her sides. In the next shot (when we see Alice from the back), we can tell by the position of her elbows that her hands are not at her sides, but in front of her.

Continuity: When Alice confesses to the murder in her kitchen, a large green plastic bowl that's been sitting on the counter disappears between shots.

Revealing: The fan letter Monk wrote to shirt Inspector 8, shown in close-up where it hangs on her work station wall, consists of the same paragraph printed out twice.

Continuity: When the fashion designer draws a sketch on the newly painted wall, the drawing changes between shots, from four lines to about seven.

Continuity: When Cora goes upstairs, her cat is curled up asleep in a chair. In the next, close-up shot, the cat is awake and sitting at the edge of the chair cushion, looking up at Monk with its front feet hanging over the side. When the shot cuts to wide angle again, kitty is instantly back in his original position, snoozing far from the edge and curled up against the pillows.

Factual error: It's late at night when Roger gets stung by hundreds of bees at the lookout point. But bees are diurnal (active only during the day). Unless something breaks into their hive, which doesn't happen here, they don't fly or swarm at night.

Factual error: Debbie's pet bird is called a parakeet, but it's a much larger exotic bird. It's unlike Monk, whose other OCD eccentricities and obscure knowledge are in full force despite his amnesia, not to know the difference. Monk may not know every rare species by name, but parakeets (aka budgerigars) are household pets common enough that anyone would know Debbie's bird isn't one. Monk definitely would have known.

Continuity: In the hospital scene, the items on Gerald's tray change positions several times between takes.

Revealing: In their efforts to hide Gerald's pet mouse from the hospital staff, Randy and Natalie toss the rodent back and forth and alternate hiding him in their pockets. But every time he's tossed, Devo the Mouse gains weight. In fact, Devo's (stuffed?) stunt-mouse double is at least twice Devo's actual size.

Continuity: When Stottlemeyer goes to open the window in his house, the position of his body (especially his right arm) changes between shots.

Continuity: When Monk is describing the laser pointer incident to Dr. Kroger, the doctor closes his black folder and puts it on the arm of his chair. In the very next shot, it's back in his lap, and he again closes it and places it on the chair arm.

Continuity: When the captain receives the victim's phone record (outside at the neighbor's house) he calls a number on the bill. But the phone starts to ring (on the other end) before he presses the last digit.

Continuity: When the Astronaut is talking to the kids in the classroom, the position of his arms changes from by his sides to folded between shots.

Plot hole: The murderer mails a garage door opener with the button taped down to his victim and kills her by remote. But A) With the switch continuously in the "on" position, the battery would die long before the package arrived, and B) Door openers use special frequency tones that are set much like a safe combination. The likelihood of one control opening 3 different doors in the same area, as it does here, is virtually nil.

Continuity: When Monk has been chloroformed in his home and is gradually sliding down the doorframe, the dentist's assistant's hands go from being clasped under her chin in one shot to by her sides in another.

Continuity: When Randy is at Monk's place talking about hiring him, Monk says "Like who?" to which Randy replies "Like Me". While Randy says this he is holding a glass with one hand, the other being in his pocket. In the next shot, when Natalie says "Is it about the dentist?", Randy is holding it with two hands. Then, in the next shot, he is holding it with one hand again.

Continuity: When the man with the letter from the Attorney General is telling Stottlemeyer not to 'screw it up', he is moving the letter in his hand. However, every time we see Stottlemeyer front on, there is a corner of the letter in the shot, and the letter remains stationary even while the other agent is moving it.

Continuity: In the jury room, the two windows behind Monk have venetian blinds, which are raised halfway on the right window. But in several shots of the science teacher coming over to identify the white powder, the right window's blinds are pulled down.

Continuity: During the rehearsal, David, playing Monk, rearranges all the items on the coffee table. But each time the camera angle reverses, the items change positions all by themselves, even when he's not touching them.

Continuity: Monk tells David about Trudy's murder, saying she told him that day she was going out to run an errand for his brother Ambrose. But this contradicts the facts established in "Mr. Monk & the 3 Pies," where Monk didn't know why Trudy had gone out that day until Ambrose told him. That's definitely not a fact that Monk would get wrong.

Continuity: The yellow-globed lamp on the movie set is hanging crooked when the actor playing Monk enters. He touches it, but doesn't move it at all, yet in the next shot, it's hanging straight. A few shots later, it's crooked again.

Continuity: When the principal walks into her office, where Monk and Natalie are waiting for her, she places an armful of folders on her desk and sorts through them. When the camera shifts to Monk's POV, the folders are back in her arms.

Continuity: During a 30-second timeout, the scoreboard in the background is counting down the time. As the scoreboard hits 12 seconds, the shot changes to Mr. Monk and the team huddle. The scoreboard appears again in the following shot, for the remainder of the timeout. When the scoreboard reappears, the clock has more than 12 seconds on it.

Visible crew/equipment: As Monk and Natalie leave the victim's brother's apartment, part of the camera rig can be seen moving across the bottom of the screen.

Continuity: Just after the touch football game with Kyle, Monk tells Natalie, "He missed that ball on purpose. He dropped his hands." But Kyle didn't drop them: he kept his hands up and deliberately missed the ball. Monk, who always notices every tiny detail, wouldn't make such a mistake.

Continuity: When the cleaning woman's body is found, she's lying on the floor face up. A short time later, despite repeated admonitions that nothing should be or has been touched, the corpse has somehow turned itself over and is now lying face down.

Continuity: When rock star and chief suspect Kris Keller is on stage, his 12-string guitar keeps changing positions between shots. In most of the long shots, he's holding and playing it. In most of the closer angles, it's hanging at his side and he's holding the microphone instead.

Continuity: Jack's big rig has a huge Christmas wreath on the front grill. When the truck loses its brakes, there's an overhead view of it careening down the road, and the wreath has disappeared. It's back in the next shot, though.

Factual error: The runaway truck ramp has no advance signage (e.g. Runaway Truck Ramp Ahead 1/2 Mile) as real runaway truck ramps do. It has no loose sand to slow down the truck's wheels. And it doesn't point uphill as a real ramp would.

Plot hole: In the opening scene, Wood's tie is grabbed by an exposed fan belt located above the side of the engine. However, this belt/pulley assembly doesn't exist in a real truck's engine compartment - the fan belts are all in front of the engine, where the camera can't see them easily. The prop master must have added this dangerous device to the truck to allow the camera to see the strangulation.

Plot hole: Monk's dad, Jack, drives an 18 wheeler. In the scene where Jack pulls over to the side of the mountain road so they can discuss specifics about the GPS, a brake line is shown breaking and spurting what I assume is meant to be brake fluid. The rig then rolls down the mountain. However, 18 wheelers don't have brake fluid since they don't have hydraulic brakes, they have air brakes. Even if the rig lost its brakes due to loss of air pressure, the brakes are spring loaded to lock up all the wheels in this case and prevent movement. That's how you set the parking brakes, by releasing the air pressure. In other words, if he has air, he can use his application brakes; if he's lost air, he has his parking brakes set. Rigs that lose their brakes going down steep grades do so due to extreme overheating, causing brake fade, an inability of the brake shoes to grab the brake drums. This wouldn't have happened while they were parked.

Continuity: When Julie talks to Monk on the phone, her hair is down over her right shoulder but swept back behind her left one. When she hangs up and hands the phone to her mom, the hair is suddenly covering her left shoulder instead, and now her right shoulder is bare.

Visible crew/equipment: Jack opens the diner door for Monk, and its glass window panes mirror the camera crew and a big rectangular studio reflector.

Revealing: When the balloon goes over the cliff, a very obvious dummy replaces Monk.

Continuity: Monk uses paper towels to grab the phone, dragging a length of white paper across the kitchen counter and leaving it there. But when he turns around to talk to Natalie, the counter behind him is bare. The paper towel trail has vanished.

Revealing: When Monk is hanging from the cliff, in the shots looking down at Monk you can see the ocean through him.

Revealing: Look at the stuntman who stands in for Tony Shalhoub when the balloon crashes and the basket scrapes and bumps along the ground. He is about fifty pounds lighter than Shalhoub, looks nothing at all like him and his hair looks like a Harpo Marx fright wig dyed black. He is one of the most obvious stand-ins I have ever seen.

Continuity: When the body falls out of the balloon gondola, the weights that were securely tied to it have disappeared. The corpse also changes positions on the ground between shots, even though no one has touched it.

Continuity: Randy is desperately trying to pry his teenage acne photo off the doctor's wall. He knocks the photo underneath it crooked, but it rights itself in the next shot. Then he pulls his picture free, making a large hole in the wall, but knocks all the surrounding photos off onto the floor. There's no time lapse, but when he turns around, the fallen photos have all put themselves neatly back up on the wall, and the hole is gone.

Continuity: In the final scene, the pillows on Natalie's couch keep shifting positions between shots, from straight to crooked and back again.

Continuity: While Dr. Polanski talks to Monk and Natalie in his waiting room, he's gesturing with both hands held out in front of him. When the shot changes angles, he's abruptly standing with his hands clasped behind his back. Next cut, he's gesturing again.

Continuity: When Natalie quizzes Monk on the finer points of ice hockey, a blue teapot sitting on the kitchen island beside her moves itself back and forth several inches between takes.

Continuity: When the murderer strangles his victim, her music box is dropped on the floor several feet away. Though no one has touched it, the music box is somehow lying only a few inches from her body when the police arrive to investigate.

Revealing: During the fight in the kitchen, piles of plates are knocked to the floor. The plates that we see hitting the ground all remain intact. Nevertheless, we hear the sound of plates smashing, and when the aftermath is shown, there is broken crockery everywhere. Clearly the plates used were made of plastic or some other unbreakable substance to minimise injury to the actors and stuntmen.

Continuity: At the end, Monk points a gun at Hal. But between takes, the weapon shifts instantly from his right hand to his left and back again.

Continuity: Monk leaves his front door standing open in anticipation of his new friend's arrival. No one goes near the front hall, but when Hal gets there, he lets himself in by opening a door that has somehow closed itself.

Continuity: At the end, the crime is reconstructed and in flashback, we see and hear the murderer makes his fake 911 call. But his words do not match the 911 tape played earlier in the episode.

Continuity: Monk finds the magazine from which the butler cut out words for his blackmail note, and matches a scrap with the word "Police" on it to the article it was cut from - only the left and bottom edges of the scrap don't conform at all to the hole cut in the page. They haven't been trimmed more. In fact, the whole piece is much too large to fit into the space.

Continuity: Natalie carries a large box full of house plants into Monk's kitchen and starts placing them one by one on the counter while he answers the phone. Each time the shot changes, a large red flower switches itself from the left side of one plant to the right side and back again, and sometimes disappears altogether.

Continuity: As the murderer is arrested at the end, the collar of his jacket changes from turned up in back to turned down, etc., several times between takes.

Continuity: In the scene where Monk mistakes the plasma TV for a blackboard, he writes the words "BODY MOVED" on the screen. Initially, he writes the "B" with an extra long vertical stroke; the next time we see the text, the vertical stroke is of a normal length. The text reads "BODY MOVED" when Monk stops writing, but when the FBI agent walks over to the screen to try to wipe it off, it has changed to "BODY M".

Factual error: The FBI agent runs a computer check and prints out a list of all the pet stores in San Francisco selling ferrets. But he shouldn't have been able to generate any list at all. Pet ferrets are illegal in the state of California, and are not sold in pet stores there.

Visible crew/equipment: Inside the CSI van, when the investigators all turn to look at Randy, an equipment shadow sweeps across the wall at the upper right of the screen.

Continuity: When Monk, the Captain and Disher talk to Dr. Scott during his cardio test, the doctor's hospital gown is falling off his left shoulder in about half the shots, but is pulled up to his neck in the rest. This alternates several times throughout the scene, though he never touches or adjusts the gown.

Revealing: When Monk and the others are examining the crime scene, the "corpse" can be seen breathing (his abdomen is rising and falling). There are various shots in this scene taken from behind the body looking into the room, and some of these are pulled back so that the body is visible while others are zoomed in so that it is not; this is not a mistake, but suggests that maybe the actor was told he would not be visible in these shots and so did not need to hold his breath.

Continuity: In the hospital corridor, when Stottlemeyer orders Monk to go home, the items on the nurse's station counter shift positions completely every time the camera angle changes.

Continuity: In the lumber yard, Randy shows a rare streak of genius by knocking out the bad guy with a 2x4 shoved through a stack of boards. When the 2x4 strikes Ringel, it stops its slide protruding about six inches from the stack. When the camera angle changes for the very next shot, the 2x4 is suddenly sticking out more than a foot.

Continuity: Ringel closes the blinds, then turns and walks away from the window. After a brief shot of Monk and Marcy, Ringel turns and walks away from the same window again.

Continuity: When Natalie is talking to Marci at Monk's door, Natalie's position in relation to the door changes between shots.

Continuity: As Marci is telling Monk about the picture she painted of him, Monk and Natalie approach her. As they approach, they change position between shots.

Continuity: The stacks of yellow craft blocks that Marcy is carving with her knife change both positions and quantity between shots.

Continuity: Near the end, when Ringel pulls a gun on Monk and Marcy, he reaches over and closes the venetian blinds. There's no gap in the shuttered blinds when he walks away from the window. Then there is. Then there isn't again.

Other: It's out of character for Monk, a chronic stickler for details, not to correct an error, especially one relating to his own life. Marcy's diorama for "Mr. Monk & the Three Pies" includes Natalie, who wasn't around yet when "Three Pies" occurred. The doll should be of Sharona, but since that would ruin the ensuing joke, Monk is allowed to overlook it. He's aware of Marcy's unreasoning obsessions, but Monk's OCD would simply not permit him to keep quiet about a mistake that glaring.

Factual error: While the police are investigating the murder at the start of the episode, the police make numerous mistakes with the crime scene. First there is no sheet over the body and/or tent to cover the body. Being they are on a beach it would make sense to cover the body from any debris or sand disturbing the body. Second, the sun is shining brightly would not help with preserving the body for the coroner. Finally why have the police only cordoned off a small area around the body. Being a crime scene and potential evidence could be found it makes little sense why they wouldn't cordon off the beach or most of it from the public.

Continuity: While Monk and co. question Vicky's roommate, two throw pillows behind her on the couch shift their orientations several times from shot to shot. The larger one also moves from the couch corner to a spot behind the woman's left arm and then back again.

Continuity: A little white pillow on Natalie's couch falls over when Monk gets up, then rights itself again when he's in the kitchen.

Plot hole: There is a dead body on the beach, police all around and none of the public are even curious at the crime scene. There is quite a number of people at the beach and only a few people even take a glance at the body which is additionally uncovered. If there was no one around then it could be understandable, but the fact that no member of the public is even trying to look or even upset by this is just impossible to believe.

Continuity: In the first shot, when the captain is chatting on the computer and Monk is looking at him through the glass, the webcam we see is white and round. In the next scene, when Monk goes into the captain's office, the webcam is now gray and square.

Continuity: In the mausoleum, the bald man asks Monk and Natalie what happened to the cremation urn name cards, and bends to pick one of them up from the floor. There are no cards on the table when he does this, but in the next shot, four cards have appeared on the table out of nowhere. A short time later, they've all disappeared again.

Plot hole: During the scene where the police are investigating the crime scene, Monk walks around without any protective footwear. Everyone in the room is wearing them, presumably to avoid contaminating any evidence. Monk regardless of his problems, would not likely be allowed to enter the scene without them. It could even be argued Monk would prefer to wear something like this. Additionally, it's not as if no one noticed. The husband even asks about whether he wiped his feet before coming in and Monk shows his shoes to him. The captain is even watching and comments about his shoes being extremely clean.

Continuity: The shape of the first ring Randy draws on the TV screen changes from an oval to a circle and then back to an oval between takes.

Continuity: When Monk and Dr. Kroger (RIP) are in the session and Monk ask Dr. Kroger where he got his watch, Dr. Kroger puts his arm on the arm of the chair and his hand across his mouth. From the back, he has his hand on his cheek, but from the front again it is back on his mouth.

Continuity: At the end, the unconscious Cousin Joey changes positions on the roof. Though no one's touched him, he somehow shifts from lying curled on his side to flat on his back.

Continuity: Monk drops the harmonica onto the coffee table, and it lands in a horizontal position. Monk doesn't touch it again, but it moves to a diagonal orientation and then back to a horizontal one between takes.

Continuity: When Monk is trying to overcome his fears with Natalie and Julie's help, the blue pillow on the couch beside him alternates from lying flat to sitting upright, without being touched, throughout the scene.

Revealing: When Monk, Natalie, and Joey are fighting on the roof, the end of the metal pipe in Joey's hand wobbles around a lot, as if the pipe is made of rubber.

Revealing: During the fight between Max and Paulie, the stunt double for Paulie is easy to spot - he has a full head of dark hair, whereas Paulie is gray and largely bald on top.

Continuity: Gulliver makes a bet with Monk and puts $50 in bills on the bar. When Monk puts down a $50 bill to match the bet and slides it across the counter, Gulliver's money has changed positions, rotating 90 degrees without being touched.

Factual error: [SPOILER ALERT] At the end of the episode, it is revealed that the mysterious cab driver had corneal transplants to repair damage to her vision from Retinitis Pigmentosa. RP is a defect of the retina, in the back of the eye, which accumulates pigment, losing its photoreceptivity, resulting in vision loss. A corneal transplant will not restore vision to someone with RP.

Continuity: At the end, the glass of egg nog Julie and Natalie leave on the floor disappears after they stand up to talk to Monk.

Plot hole: This episode's entire story line takes place in the six days before Christmas (Dec. 19-24). "Bad Santa" is shot in the right shoulder on the 19th, sustaining a wound serious enough to require wearing a sling for the next several days. Yet at the end, a mere few days later, he's recovered enough to have a knock-down-drag-out fistfight with Monk, wielding a knife and throwing powerhouse punches with his wounded arm as though no injury had ever occurred.

Visible crew/equipment: When Monk first enters "Father's" cabin, the tip of the boom mike dips briefly into the shot at the top of the screen.

Continuity: Just after Stottlemeyer and Natalie pull up to the curb to snatch Monk off the sidewalk, the boy and girl cult members instantly switch positions between takes.

Continuity: At the end, the grocery bags Natalie carries change shape and orientation several times during Monk's confrontation with "Father."

Continuity: After Dr. Kroger tosses Trudy's picture to the floor, Monk drops the book he's been holding onto the mattress and kneels to retrieve the photo. In the next shot, the book has jumped to a spot on the floor beside him.

Continuity: One of the large safety deposit box doors is standing wide open when Monk is curled up in the vault's corner. But when the camera angle changes, the door has closed itself.

Continuity: The living statue street performer holds a water bottle in his left hand while Randy questions him. When his alarm goes off and the shot cuts, the bottle jumps to his right hand.

Continuity: When Monk is trying to convince the old woman to use the other pen so the ink in them will be even, in the shots from behind him, the pen's chain is hanging down below the counter. In the shots from in front of him, the chain is pulled taught.

Continuity: The broken side mirror that a distraught Stottlemeyer finds dangling from his damaged car wasn't there when Natalie pulled up to the first crime scene. And it disappears again when Natalie runs back to the car and races off to the second crime scene.

Factual error: Monk deflects the policeman's rifle shot and the bullet hits Stottlemeyer's car. But the gun fires just as Monk pushes it aside, and the car is behind them. There's nothing that could deflect the bullet back toward them, so at that angle, there's no way the shot could have struck the car.

Visible crew/equipment: At the end, as Monk is summing up what happened, the shadow of the boom rigging intrudes into the shot on the right, against the backrest of the big green chair.

Continuity: The damage to Stottlemeyer's new car doesn't remain consistent from shot to shot. The dents change configuration and the angle of the torn fender also changes.

Factual error: Natalie's daughter Julie has just passed her driver's test. At the end, she drives up with two teenage friends in the car and offers the stranded Captain Stottlemeyer a ride. Instead of accepting, he should be lecturing her. California law prohibits new teenage drivers from having other teens in the car, and as a cop, he'd certainly be aware of that.

Continuity: In the police station, Julie's hair is neatly combed over her left shoulder. Then it's disarrayed and partially falling over her right shoulder, too. Then it's neat and only on the left side again.

Visible crew/equipment: At the end, as George is arrested, equipment shadows can be seen moving across Disher's back. In the reverse angles, there's nothing behind him but the window, and nothing's moving in that.

Other: This really should have been titled "Mr. Monk and the Four Julies," because there are in fact four of them: Natalie's daughter, the two murder victims, and Matt's not-so-well-preserved mother.

Continuity: When Mr. Monk is on the run, he steals the man's keys at the Gas Station and then drives the truck in circles and then stops. When he stops, the truck is exactly parallel to the end of the concrete slab where the gas pumps are located. However, when the police arrive, the truck is now at a different angle with the back of the truck now being closer to the end of the concrete slab than the front. The gas station attendant would not have moved the truck himself as the police would have told him not to touch anything at the scene.

Continuity: The items on the campsite table change positions radically just before Monk leaps up and knocks it over. Nothing is in the same place that it was just one shot previously.

Continuity: During Monk's fingerprinting session, the towelette packets on the counter change positions and quantity several times.

Plot hole: *Spoilers* Monk and Stottlemeyer cook up an ingenious plan to make Monk appear dead, but how the fugitive Monk acquires his regular clothes (in place of Mitch's uniform), the bullet-proof vest and the gun is not addressed. The police are watching Monk's apartment, Disher is watching Natalie and Julie, and Rawlins is watching Stottlemeyer, leaving us to wonder just how they managed all this right under their fellow cops' noses.

Continuity: Sheriff Rawlins reports that his van had slowed for a yellow light when Monk escaped. But the van was driving down a forest road at the time. It was nowhere near any traffic lights.

Continuity: Natalie's "smoothie" is an extremely unappetizing pitcher full of dark brown glop. But when she pours it out into a glass, it has turned white.

Continuity: When Natalie comes in to Mr. Monk's house and realizes by opening the refrigerator that Mr. Monk is at home, the first camera shot after she closes the refrigerator door shows a Tupperware container with a blue lid just to the right of the refrigerator (facing it) that is slightly turned so that is is not parallel to the refrigerator's side, and then just to the right of the container is a blender with the top lid off. When Lieutenant Randy Disher later comes in the house, there is a camera shot that shows that the Tupperware is now square with the refrigerator's side, and it appears to be a different Tupperware than the first shot, as it looks bigger and appears to have more stored inside of it and it does not appear to have a blue lid. Also, the blender now has the top lid on it. In a third shot, the blender has now moved to the right at least 12 inches, which is confirmed while Natalie is preparing the smoothie: it can be seen that it has moved from its previous position and the blue topped Tupperware has returned. Finally, when Natalie starts to prepare the smoothie, the top of the blender is off and it is not ever seen that she removed the lid herself.

Continuity: The needle Monk finds in the campers' sewing kit threads itself instantaneously between takes. He finds the spool of orange thread, and in the very next shot, tho there's absolutely no indication of any time passing, he's holding the already-threaded needle.

Continuity: In the motel room, the newspaper clippings and the scrapbook Monk has been working on change their arrangement on the table between shots as the owner's daughter and her dog are leaving.

Continuity: When Mr. Monk is at the hotel, a teenage girl comes in to clean up the room. While they are conversing, the subject of mysteries comes up and she goes out and gets the newspaper and places it in front of Mr. Monk on the table. They then talk a little more about it and Mr. Monk gestures with his hands for her to take the newspaper away and she then picks up the newspaper off of the table and exits the room with it. During this entire sequence, you can see that Mr. Monk does not ever touch the newspaper. Later on, at the car wash, Mr. Monk sees a newly-painted red SUV that used to be silver colored. When recalling that the teenage girl said that they were looking for a silver SUV, it now shows Mr. Monk pushing the newspaper across the table towards the teenage girl even though he never touched it in the original scene.

Continuity: When Mr. Monk is attempting to turn off the key to the Governor's car, his right hand is clutching the top middle portion of the front windshield. However, one of the next camera shots shows the windowshield only with no hand at the top. Then a couple of camera shots later, Mr. Monk's right hand is now on the top of the dashboard. At the end of the sequence, his right hand is clutching the top middle portion of the front windshield again.