MR. MONK GETS JURY DUTY
by Peter Wolk
"Jury Duty" was my second freelance assignment for Monk. My first was "Mr. Monk Gets Fired" in Season Three. I was thrilled to get the return engagement, and very excited that it was "Jury Duty."
I've actually logged a lot of time in front of juries as a practicing criminal defense attorney in New York City. And when I haven't been in court, I've been writing about it ("The Defenders" on Showtime, "Fighting the Odds" on Lifetime.)
Andy thought this script would be right in my wheelhouse. I hope you agree.
As a freelancer, I spent a week in the Writers Room in beautiful downtown Summit, New Jersey, with Andy, Tom, David, Joe, Dan and Hy -- six incredibly funny, creative, generous, and collaborative guys.
When we started out the week, there was just one index card with the title of the episode on a bulletin board. By the end of the week, not only had we watched Henry Fonda in "12 Angry Men" and Pauly Shore in "Jury Duty", we had filled up the bulletin board with cards for all the story beats and scenes for a teaser, four acts, and a tag. And I was ready to go off and write the script.
Speaking of "12 Angry Men" –- it is one of my all-time favorite movies and provided a lot of inspiration for "Jury Duty". Our Juror No. 10, Mr. Cobb, was named for Lee J. Cobb, who played Juror No. 3 in "12 Angry Men".
And the long panning shot in the empty jury room at the end of the show was inspired by the last shot in the jury room in "12 Angry Men."
The "teaser" for the show -- the Chinatown chase scene -– was actually shot on location in San Francisco. Everything else was shot in Los Angeles.
Once we learned that the production was going to the Bay Area in November to shoot some exteriors, we re-wrote the teaser to give it a more classic San Francisco setting.
Past Entries:
