work with in order to give some personal involvement. Monk was not considered mostly because he does not have a cleaning lady, and if he did, she would never be good enough for him because of his germophobia and meticulousness. It was eventually decided that the maid would be Dr. Kroger's employee. The idea of having her work for Dr. Kroger was successful, because the writers had been looking to have an episode where Kamel would be the focus. This led to further complications in the writing process. For a few days, it was thought that Monk and Dr. Kroger would work to solve the case, but upon realizing that Monk would not be able to go back to a clinical detachment with Dr. Kroger, they eliminated this idea. So instead, Dr. Kroger does appear in more scenes than he normally does, but he stays out of the investigation scenes. As a result, Monk and Dr. Kroger do not break into Francis Merrigan's office to snoop around, though that would have been the typical thing to do if someone else were there. Rather, they simply peer through the sliding glass door that opens from Merrigan's office into the courtyard. Another major challenge that came up in production was who Monk's new psychiatrist would be. Several ideas included a woman, someone too strict or too nice, someone driven crazy by Monk's compulsions, and even someone who would give Monk scream therapy. The eventual decision came from writer Jonathan Collier, who suggested a one-armed psychiatrist. Shalhoub liked the idea, but required that they recruit an actual one-armed actor to play Dr. Sorenson. The Screen Actors Guild actually had several actors waiting to audition, and the part was given to Rick Curry. Reception "Mr. Monk Gets a New Shrink" was first broadcast in the United States on the USA Network at 9 pm EST on August 18, 2006. According to Nielsen Media Research, the episode was watched by an estimated number of 5.21 million viewers. It was the sixth most watched program on cable television that week with a 3.4 percent household rating and a household audience of 3.7 million. The episode was well-received; Kamel elected it one of his three favorite episodes of the series, Jeffrey Robinson of DVD Talk dubbed it a "strong episode", while Adam Finley from AOL TV said it was "great". IGN's Colin Moriarty said one can "have