We don’t watch a lot of TV, but we get USA Network on our Basic Cable package, and the family likes to watch Monk.

I have a 5 and a 9 year old. Monk is rated TV-PG. Fine, we can watch it as a family..

I know NCIS comes on right before Monk, and it’s rated TV-14. I don’t watch the show, so I don’t know no much about it other than it stars Mark Harmon and it’s pretty violent. As we gather to watch the show in the living room, I have the TV on the public access channel one channel up.

But USA doesn’t have any commercial breaks between shows. They cut right from NCIS to Monk. They even have a little countdown ticker (“Monk starts in 28 seconds… 27… 26…”) at the bottom of the screen while NCIS is still on. They are expecting families to do what we are doing.

Within 30 seconds of Monk starting, I switch to USA, so we could watch the show come on. Mark Harmon and other people were on the roof of some building. My five year old was watching the Monk countdown in the corner of the screen.

Then, on NCIS, a woman got shot by sniper right in the forehead, blood spattering. She fell to the ground – dead – in a pool of blood spreading from their head. I couldn’t get to the remote fast enough.

I’m no prude. I like zombie and horror movies. But come on, USA. That was just wrong.

How am I supposed to tune in to a PG show like Monk, when it’s scheduled immediately after a violent TV-14 show, with absolutely no buffer in between?

So I don’t think I’ll be watching Monk on Friday nights anymore. I’ll have to watch them on Hulu.

Disappointing. :-(