EP0400s: Screen Director’s Playhouse: D.O.A.

Edmond O'Brien

A man (Edmund O’Brien) is poisoned and spends his last days trying to find the man who murdered him.

Original Air Date: June 21, 1951

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  1 comment for “EP0400s: Screen Director’s Playhouse: D.O.A.”

  1. May 8, 2011 at 8:12 am

    *Spoiler Warning for Season 8 of Monk*

    The plot of DOA played a crucial part in the final episodes of MONK.

    Again, a detective’s last case is to find his own murderer. Not plagiarism, more of an homage, like “Variations on a Theme by Paganini,” a nod to greatness, one master acknowledging another.

    At the end of the first part, Monk opens Trudy’s last Xmas present to find a tape with crucial evidence, lost all these years. It struck me: “The Resurrection Stone!” from Harry Potter. Monk’s writers were certainly stealing from the best.

    I thought the ending a bit hollow. Yes, all the minor characters were rewarded, the chief gets Virginia Madsen, Randy gets Sharona (and the job as Police Captain of Summit, NJ), Natalie gets her Navy pilot. But for Monk….a truer ending would be a simple death, surrounded by friends, his name carved on Trudy’s tombstone, joined together forever. Every cries, then pairs off and marries. Happy ending (sort of).

    Instead, Monk is cured in a Deus ex Machina plot device. A long lost daughter appears, a clone of Trudy in her twenties. This can’t end well. Monk is twice her age and desperately in love with her mother. We’re getting into creepy Hitchcock Vertigo territory. Plus, Monk shot and killed her biological father. A good plotline for a classic Greek Drama, but not for a TV show.

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