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| That arch Moonlighting wit! |
Then it ran into production delays, writing strikes, and the inevitable creative wall when resolving romantic tension between leads. And all of this took a mere four years...
This was the first time I'd seen these episodes in over a decade, and overall they have not aged very well. While neither of the central characters appearing in their fully-formed state is a huge disadvantage for a show built around their interplay, the larger problem to a modern audience is the whoah-is-this-slack pacing. It's a product of the era, coming on the heels of a decade of highly popular but very deliberately-paced mystery television, and a strong argument for the drama:60 comedy:30 rule.
Another flaw very evident from the start is just which tone the series is aiming for. Played as satire, there are enormous stretches without any humor; played straight the farcical elements have the audience wondering how our heroes survive more than an hour or two. In my memory the series carried a good balance that's completely absent from the first season.
Episode 1: Pilot
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| Excuse me, sir, are you Robert Davi? |
The imminent murder victim wakes up, goes for a jog, is stalked by a not-at-all-conspicuous 80s punk rocker, becomes unnerved, wanders into traffic and is hit by a car. The punk, who was preparing to shoot the guy, takes the watch off of his sprawled body and flees. The incredibly-quick-to-arrive tv police do nothing to stop this.
Then it's on to slapstick. Series lead Maddie Hayes is fully established before she even speaks a word by a Cameron-like pan across a wall full of magazine covers and fashion glossies. Alas, those were five years ago, and now her business managers have cleaned out her accounts and gone on the lam. She can no longer pay her servants, forcing her eye-rollingly hammy personal chef to quit after theatrically breaking whatever furniture sits between him and the door. Good luck getting a positive referral, buddy.
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| You just want to punch him, don't you? |
Unfortunately, that's not really the Addison introduced here. In 1986, the insufferable smirking douchebag was, apparently, a daring and untapped variant for leading men; Addison is all that and more; the closest analogue would be a horndog Peter Venkman unfettered by Murray's self-aware pathos. His shtick is served poorly by matching him with a wrapped far-too-tight version of Maddie, which means her reactions are nearly always pitched between exasperated and hysterical; Maddie's first-season catchphrase is a shrieked "David! What are we going to do now?!" For about three acts, the two don't bandy words so much as he delivers a series of monologues that she occasionally interrupts.
Also interrupting things is the still-playing-straight mystery plot, as the punk is stalked across two interminably long scenes by Switchblade Sid Royce, who desires the watch stolen from our jogging victim in the teaser. We know Punk has a gun and is inclined toward killing joggers, yet he's terrified by Sid and leads him on a merry chase through the Bonaventure Hotel while he looks for his own contact who also wants the watch. He staggers from the elevator and -- again, at interminable length, before a dozen witnesses -- forces the watch onto Maddie's wrist.
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| I hope you intend no ill with that, sir. |
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| Cybill Shepherd, action heroine. |
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* a modern remake of the series would most likely be set in Maddie's dirty bookstore, with Addison as the store manager, Viola as the Randall-like booth cleaner, and the ingenue assistant from a small town somewhere who continually misconstrues the trappings of the business.
** Which David nudged them into asking to save his job. The press obediently stops following her after ten feet when she chases him out to the parking lot. Also: "Addison" has the same syllable count as the also exasperatedly-shouted "Gilligan."
*** Not coincidentally, David plies her with booze before both of their civil conversations.
Pros: The asides work, sometimes.
Cons: As a suspense story, it's paced like a rom-com.
Then: A
Now: B
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Episode 2: Gunfight at the So-So Corral
A remarkably fresh-faced Tim Robbins saunters into a hospital room with a bouquet and a .38. He indicates he's here to pull the shades on the much older, fatter, and hospital-bound man in the room. In an unexpected twist, the older man gets out of bed and beats the crap out of Tim, dropping him in a laundry chute.
None of this important backstory is known to our heroes when David Fletches the would-be victim from a rival detective agency's lobby to prove that his firm is a viable business.* Once reeled in, the fish hires them to find his "son," who may be involved in something "nefarious."* Quickly exhausting all other leads, our heroes enter The Anvil, a seedy downtown bar whose atmosphere is approximately halfway between the seedy bars of 48 Hours and Weird Science. When David's loud, irritating streetwise-white-guy approach fails (he doesn't lapse into jive, but it's close), Maddie's direct manner nets their next lead: the "son" is, in fact, a nefarious hitman.
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| 2 for 2: our heroes in trouble! |
Which is less of a problem, since the sweet, old, hospital-room, terminally ill, onetime French resistance contact isn't the hitman's father; he's an old gunfighter looking to Wild Bunch his way out of life instead of entertaining an endless series of Tim Robbinses looking for that reputation-making kill. The two face off in a junkyard duel which lasts for the entire fourth act, encompasses some hostage-taking, begging, crying, and a long, world-weary speech.
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* It's completely unclear how the place is staying afloat, or even the status of Maddie's ruinous finances.
* Young guy uses an automatic, old guy a revolver. Of course.
Pros: Maddie's volume level has softened a notch from shrieking to loudly indignant.
Cons: Even more than the pilot, the series' leads are spectators at best, props at worst.
Then: A
Now: C
Episode 3: Read the Mind, see the Movie
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| Ghostbuster, or Flash from GI Joe? |
The sabotage is easy to blame on the Blue Moon Detective Agency of Los Angeles, California, who through some nepotism consults for the laser design firm's security needs. Their chief rival, a noted playboy industrialist heads the list of suspects, so Maddie, talked out of driving over to groundlessly accuse the man, instead invites him to dinner. For the third episode in a row, the dinner scene serves as the only place Maddie can string more than two sentences together without exasperation. This time it's taken to new heights as she delivers a minute-plus monologue about her modeling history and why she'll never go back to it (because "our eyes are in the front of our head" ...oy). It describes a grounded, savvy woman who scarcely resembles the shrill, credulous one who owns a detective agency.
Exhibit B: the rival playboy admits the truth: a psychic has been telling him industrial secrets. Which security consultant Maddie Hayes buys completely. Their former employer, who's been using the guy to pull his father's strings, not so much. Still, it enables a full act of padding as our heroes fruitlessly confront the psychic, and half of a second while they attempt to skulk around the psychic's mansion (only in LA...) while a seance with mom is held. Indeed: skulk around the psychic. Good plan, but it does give David an excuse to have Maddie undress in the line of duty for the second consecutive episode.
Suddenly it's the third act and we've skipped to the congratulatory "we make a good team" scene, which is premature -- the saboteur angle hasn't been covered. But at the very moment our partners are discussing it, Vivian summons them to the firm, confesses everything, and then attempts to kill them both with another laser gun. Something exciting with mirrors was apparently too expensive, so she carves a chunk out of the roof that then collapses on her.
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Pros: A lot of laser effects for the time...
Cons: High tech backpack, psychic powers... the high concept police are at the door, David..
Then: B-
Now: C
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Episode 4: The Next Murder You Hear
Listeners are shocked when lonely hearts' radio host Paul McCain is murdered on the air. Over strenuous objections, David pushes to investigate the case to generate good publicity for the firm. Feigning to work for a confidential client, the pair bluff their way through an interview at the studio murder scene, learning that the victim, while well liked in radio and not the owner of a face for radio, was likely a philandering cad. Which is all Maddie needs to hear: the guy got what was coming to him. David takes her moral stance as an indication of myriad sexual hangups, for which she hurls him out of her speeding car.
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| What's all this, then? |
Surprise! Paul McC is not dead.* He has faked his death to ensure continued relations with his boss's boss's boss's wife. While Maddie hears his confessional, a jealous and drunk David falsettos his way through Aretha.
Once again, we seem to have solved the case before the last act. But then, the complication! Laura's media magnate husband is now dead. with both her and Paul obvious suspects. The next-most-obvious suspect is the station's manager who clearly has his eye on the merry widow. This all comes to a head in the fourth-act "gather the suspects" scene, resulting in shootout, chase, and another fatal fall for the killer.--
* Unimproved is the "they want to know who we're working for" exchange, which, ghastly and overlong, they later call back. Twice.
* Subtle, 'lighting writers.
Pros: James Sloyan.
Cons: Maddie crawls on all fours to bite someone on the leg. Twice.
Then: B
Now: C-
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Episode 5: Next Stop Murder
The opening credits for the series indicate a "with Allyce Beasley," who heretofore has served only as a time-filling shtick machine, reciting lengthy poems to every phone call the agency receives (unerringly the setup to an ironic response). As the first season enters the stretch, Dipesto is the catalyst for an episode: she has won a contest (because the author thought she was Maddie) and is invited to a murder mystery train hosted by a famous author. Hijinks ensue when Maddie and David are contrived to be stuck on the 24-hour trip, and the author is found dead shortly thereafter!
The other passengers turn on each other, and since the murder occurs halfway through the episode, none of them rise beyond the stock character types -- except Rodney, forensics consultant, author's lapdog, recent Sanka convert and tragic love interest for Dipesto (as well as future real-life husband of one Allyce Beasley). While the other passengers on the train have the usual motives: the spurned lover, the snooty guy with gambling debts, the unrequited man-crush. Only Rodney has a believable reason for offing his meal ticket.--
Pros: This is the first episode where the mystery plot actually feels subordinate to the lead characters.
Cons: Maddie always gets shot with ultra-soft lighting in her ones, but cutting between her soft and David's natural lighting at the train station is ultra-jarring.
Then: B
Now: B
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Episode 6: The Murder's in the Mail
Following last week's change of pace the season ends in a more typically Moonlighting fashion. The agency is desperate for a client, Addison is being incorrigible. Also typically, he has a plan for revenue Maddie disagrees with at length: subcontracting the agency for debt collection. Then the trial collection is a spy whose burn notice is in, and just like that our heroes are in over their head, just like all comedy heroes who run afoul of espionage. The initial collectee has been murdered; when they return with the police (or the building super; it's ambiguous) another, living man claims to be him. Returning later still, they find the apartment stripped clean of furniture an themselves tailed by the CIA.
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| The first season ends on a classy note. |
The remarkably forthcoming CIA agent fills in every detail: the original victim was a double agent, silenced before he could help thwart an assassination attempt on a visiting Chinese VIP! Would you believe me if I said the attempt was thwarted with a food fight?
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Pros: Contains the famed "man with the mole on his nose" sequence...
Cons: ...which only really works out of context.
Then: A
Now: B
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