Moonlighting - Seasons 1 & 2

I still have what I consider to be the best episodes of "Moonlighting" on tape (albeit, Beta tapes). So when I watched the first two seasons of Glen Gordon Caron's seminal dramedy series that first aired in 1985 and saw the rest of the show I found myself wishing that we did some television shows the way they do in Great Britain. A "series" across the pond is what we call a season here, and a show like "Coupling," for example, might do only six episodes in a season. Well, the first season of "Moonlighting" only had five episodes after the pilot movie, and like most series the other writers had problems getting a handle on the show's uniqueness. Only "The Next Murder You Hear," written by Peter Silverman, is on the same level as the pilot. "Moonlighting" was pretty good, but it had its low points and imagine how great it would have been if these were the six episodes that made up the second season:(8) "Brother, Can You Spare a Blonde?" (Written by Caron), in which David's brother Ritchie (Charles Rocket) stops by for a visit; (10) "Money Talks, Maddie Walks") (Written by Kerry Ehrin & Ali Marie Matheson), where Maddie finds out that the accountant who embezzled her fortune is running a casino down South American way; (11) "The Dream Sequences Always Rings Twice" (Written by Debra Frank & Carl Sautter) is the monochromatic episode, introduced by Orson Welles, where we get Maddie and David's different takes on an unsolved murder mystery from 1946; (15) "Portrait of Maddie" (Written by Ehrin & Matheson) in which a painting of Maddie is a clue to a stolen masterpiece and an episode which features the longest period of time without dialogue in the show's history; (21) "Every Father's Daughter is a Virgin" (Written by Bruce Franklin Singer) has Maddie's mother (Eva Marie Saint) and father (Robert Webber) paying a visit, and David finding out something about Maddie's father she does not want to know; and (22) "Witness for the Execution" (Written by Jeff Reno & Ron Osborn) surprises us by coming up with a reason for David and Maddie to finally kiss.This is not to say that there are not other episodes in the running (e.g., "My Fair David" and "In God We Strongly Suspect") and if somebody wants to argue there should be eight episodes or even ten (add "Atlas Belched" and "Funeral for a Door Nail") I will not say thee nay. But given the problems they had shooting their 140 pages scripts and getting new episodes on each week, I cannot help but think that the show would have been even greater if we they had not wasted precious time on less than stellar episodes, such as the painful "Camille" that wastes Whoopi Goldberg and Judd Nelson in a story that abuses the show's post modernistic tendency to break the fourth wall.For my money "M*A*S*H" became the original television dramedy with its first season episode "Sometimes You Hear the Bullet." As a Detective Comedy/Drama "Moonlighting" is clearly a dramedy as well, but a large part of its uniqueness as a television series was because of it being decidedly postmodern. There was the verbal self-reflexivity in which David and Maddie were clearly aware they were television characters, the musical self-reflexivity where "Moonlighting" employed an incongruous juxtaposition of the musical soundtrack and the action on screen (using "The William Tell Overture" for the chase scene at the end of "The Lady in the Iron Mask") or sometimes it fits (e.g., when David listens to "Papa Was a Rollin' Stone" while trailing Maddie's father), and the show's intertextuality as it plays with the boundaries of the Situation Comedy and the Detective genres. Then there are all references to other texts such as films, songs, novels, etc., through episode titles (e.g., "My Fair David," "The Dream Sequence Always Rings Twice"), dialogue, musical cues, and visual techniques.Picking up all these references was what made watching "Moonlighting" fun as David and Maddie slowly but surely fought their verbal duels on their way to their inevitable kiss in the parking garage. If there is a "mistake" to be found in some of the early episodes it is the idea that the detective part of the show was as important as the relationship between the two stars. But coming up with an actual mystery for the Blue Moon Detective Agency to solve was not as important as the fact the case would gave David and Maddie something to fight about. If she was not going to end up slamming a door over the case of the week, then the writers are missing the point. But then the strangest thing about watching the "Moonlighting" pilot is being shocked at how slow the two stars are talking at that point.The key thing is that when "Moonlighting" was good during those first two seasons it was great, and even when it is not so good, there are usually a couple of good one liners buried in it to be enjoyed. Cybil Shepherd and Bruce Willis apparently ended up not being able to stand each other off camera, but their on screen chemistry is undeniable (I was pleasantly surprised Willis showed up to do an audio commentary track for "My Fair David," not to mention his remembering the "You de-Daved him" line). Therefore it is probably a good thing that they did not do the less is more approach. Still, a "Moonlighting" that was written only by Glen Gordon Caron would have been something to watch (think a "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" written only by Joss Whedon).So when is Season 3 coming out?

Moonlighting came in 1985 and had a great impact in all the fiction written for television since then. Why? Well.. let's see...It all started as the basic detective formula: two incompatible oddballs brought together having to solve one case in each episode - basically the same premisse present in most of the shows until then.But there is more than meets the eye.Moonlighting introduced new values such as MUSIC.... no other show had such a dramatic use of music as Moonlighting. Here, the usual "chase music" present in all shows were changed for Motown, blues, old rock classics and other kinds of music that where always used to a dramatic effect. The choice of each song we hear throughout the seasons was cleverly made... It means that most of the shows that came after... from CHINA BEACH to SEX AND THE CITY to SIX FEET UNDER owes a lot to the way Moonlighting started to use music. I just feel sorry that the producers never released a bigger soundtrack on cd because the CD that came in 1987 was far from its potential....More...Moonlighting opened up the TV narrative to the inner mind of the characters... in the sence that from then on, everything was possible in terms of what's going on inside the characters and the way we see it on the screen. The usual voiceover narration (that's as far as TV shows went until Moonlighting) was replaced by dreams, animation, musical numbers, richer editing, etc... again, Moonlighting opened the path to the great TV fiction we see today. THE SOPRANOS owe a lot to that.More...No other TV show relied upon the viewer's bond to the characters as Moonlighting... you can see that by the incredible number of ways fiction and reality merged during many episodes... many times, David Addison adressed the audience directly. Many times the characters show the sets and the fact that they are in a TV show... something that 99% of the TV shows at that time could not do. It is true that Moonlighting was not the only show to do that. SLEDGE HAMMER, many times did the same... but Moonlighting wasn't only a comedy......It was perhaps one of the first TV shows to blend different genres that were usually kept separated. Was it comedy? Was it detective-genre like MAGNUM P.I.? Was it romance? It was certainly not fantasy... but there was a lot of fantasy in it....It was one of the first TV "self-aware" shows that even paid homages to Cinema (Film noir, great musicals, keystone cops... just to name a few).It was also one of the first TV shows that actually had great supporting roles with plots and conflicts on their own.Moonlighting brought also more mature themes and an increasingly complexness to the leading character's motivations. And in this sence it is fascinating to see that in Moonlighting we have a detective show where many episodes go by where Maddie and David do not have cases to solve... where the spotlight is in their relationship.It is like the show started as a formula and drifted to something richer, more complex, newer...TODAY, fiction is miles beyond Moonlighting... but the show remains fascinating as an example of a TV product where everything is right. I trully believe Moonlighting had an important role in the development of TV fiction into what we see today.By the way... this DVD edition has been long anticipated by many fans like myself... It seems that it took a long time to secure the rights to all the great songs in the episodes... but now that everything is in order... let's enjoy the perfect chemistry between Cybill Shepherd and Bruce Willis... the last heirs of Katherine Hapburn and Cary Grant...Simply great!!!!!!!!!

It showed up on time.

This show was one of my favorites growing up . . . at least the first two seasons. I can remember watching the "TV Movie" that was the pilot. A lot of people now don't realize watching that that a CD Walkman around that time was a big technology innovation. That pilot episode definitely had and reminds me of the "80s feel". Love it. Anyway the first two seasons were fun. They were fresh. But as we approached the third, fourth, and fifth seasons it was almost like the writers wanted to make people miserable (it went down hill exactly at the end of "Blonde on Blonde" in season 3). It was just plots designed to jerk the audience around. Also some say that it was because of a writer's strike. Obviously that is not true. Some say it was because Shepherd was pregnant. I never got that one. If she can have her parts "in Chicago" with the parents why not in LA? It was totally bad writing and bad writing decisions. I was turned off by then. It was only now all these years later that I have actually seen some of the later episodes and even know how it ended. And by that time Willis was a big movie star and rubbing elbows with Hollywood. So their acting/chemistry was the equivalent of sleep walking to me. But the writers totally ruined what was a fun show by by the end. I can see why it ended. At least they all stayed with the show to the end. Not something that most do started around that time and to date.

All the episodes can be viewed on the disks.

Die 2 CD ist defekt!

This tv show I love so much and it’s packing CD quilty was so good thank you

Just as fun as I remember. I just received it 2 days ago so j can't comment on all the discs but the first one is in fine shape (I bought this used). Looking forward to the rest of the season 1 & 2 episodes.

Such an original show! Very different in its dialogue. Endearing receptionist character, and very funny slapstick scenes such as the one with the lady in the lace mask and the funeral car race. You can't lose buying this! And no stupid commercials to sit through.