 Moonlighting was a very
popular show in the mid to late ‘80s, and I remember it as such, but for whatever reason, I don’t
see it remembered by its fans as an American classic. I wouldn't
suggest that everyone look on it with such reverence, but
I will say it’s a better show than I remembered. I should
admit here that I was only a casual Moonlighting viewer during its initial run and never watched it in syndication
so perhaps I wasn’t as wellversed
in my knowledge of the show as I should have been before I
sat down with this season set. Nevertheless, I found quite
a bit to like and had only minor complaints.
Moonlighting centered around the activities
at Blue Moon Investigations, a private detective firm operated
by former model Maddie Hayes (Cybill Shepherd) and resident
wiseguy David Addison (Bruce Willis). This hour-long comedy/drama
spent much of its time focused on the relationship between
these two characters. And what a relationship they had. The
banter, innuendo and sexual tension between these two was
something to behold. Shepherd and Willis had an amazing chemistry
and the writers took advantage of it every chance they got.
One of the hallmarks of this show was
the amazingly fast-paced dialogue between these two characters.
At least once in every episode there would be an extended
sequence where they had entire conversations where neither
stopped talking. The resulting overlap in dialogue was quite
impressive.
 At least 90% of most episodes featured either Maddie, David
or both, but there were a handful of other characters to enjoy.
Agnes Dipesto (Allyce Beasley), the mousy receptionist who
always answered the phone with a rhyming poem was consistently
funny. I always wondered why she wasn’t given a bigger
part in the show. Season three introduced a love interest
for Miss Dipesto in Booger himself (Curtis Armstrong) as Herbert
Viola, the ever shy temp employee who is eventually given
a permanent position at the firm. Booger is always awesome
and never disappoints, which means he was a great, if underutilized
addition to the cast.
While
it was primarily a detective drama and certainly featured
some dark story lines, Moonlighting was as
silly a show as you’ll ever see. One of the best aspects
of this show was that it never took itself seriously and it
constantly took jabs at itself. Another hallmark of the show
was that at least once per episode - and sometimes several
times - one or more of the characters would break the 'fourth
wall' in creative and unexpected ways. Characters would make
references to the writers, for example, and there were often
jokes about rumored problems on the set. These moments really
lightened the tone of the show and helped make some rather
mundane situations interesting.
 Speaking of problems on the set of Moonlighting,
it’s no secret that the show had its share of production
difficulties throughout its run. The writers had tremendous
difficulty coming up with complete stories, Shepherd became
pregnant and Willis broke his collarbone in a skiing accident.
All of these things resulted in numerous delays in filming
and constant
reruns of old shows, which frustrated fans. The third season
produced just 15 new episodes, which is low for a prime-time
network show in the 1980s, but it was not unusual for this
show as there were only 67 episodes produced in five seasons.
The writers would often make light of this by inserting self-referential
jokes which would take swipes at their own inabilities to
keep the production going.
Lions Gate has released all 15 of the third season’s
episodes on a four disc set. Some of the more noteworthy episodes
include:
 Episode 1, The
Son Also Rises - David’s father (Paul Sorvino)
shows up to announce he’s engaged to be wed. It’s
no big deal until David learns his father’s fiancée
is a woman with whom he previously had an affair. This leads
to an interesting confrontation between David and the woman
which ends in a somewhat surprising twist. This episode is
most memorable because of Sorvino, who is always a pleasure.
Episode 2, The
Man Who Cried Wife - David and Maddie investigate mysterious
phone calls a man is receiving from his wife, his wife he
was under the impression he’d killed and buried in the
forest. How could she be alive if he buried her? This episode
is most fun because there’s real mystery to the story
and a terrific twist ending.
Episode 5, All
Creatures Great and…Not So Great - A priest (the
always amazing Brad Dourif who we’ve most recently enjoyed
as Doc Cochrane on Deadwood) hires Maddie
and David to find a woman he’s been hearing in confession.
The problem is he’s fallen in love with her despite
having no idea what she looks like. I enjoyed this episode
a lot because it also had some great mystery elements and
another great twist ending.
Episode 7, Atomic
Shakespeare - An interesting concept episode featuring
the cast acting out a very loose adaptation of The Taming
of the Shrew with Maddie as Kate and David as Petruchio.
I’ll freely admit I’m something of a dullard and
I don’t really get Shakespeare, but this episode was
very cool. The entire episode was done in iambic pentameter
and it was replete with intentional anachronisms. And it has
Colm Meaney in it. What more could you need?
Episode 10, Poltergeist
III – Dipesto Nothing - I said above that I always
felt Miss Dipesto deserved a bigger role in the show, but
this wasn’t it. In this episode, Agnes attempts to solve
her own mystery in an effort to impress Booger. I admire her
intentions. Who wouldn’t want to impress Booger? But
this episode only briefly featured David and Maddie and felt
like something of a cop-out. Miss Dipesto was a great comic
character, and she was one of Moonlighting’s
true strengths, but she was not meant to carry a whole episode.
Episode 11, Blonde
on Blonde - Maddie’s acting strange, but won’t
tell David what’s going on so he decides to follow her,
thinking he might figure it out. Problems arise when it turns
out David followed the wrong blonde and ends up involved in
a murder. That issue gets settled so David goes to Maddie’s
house with the intention of finally telling her how he feels
about her only to find someone else answering her door. Who
answers her door? Mark Harmon. Who expected Mark Harmon to
answer the door? I didn’t. This episode marked the beginning
of a four episode story arc where Harmon played an astronaut
love interest of Maddie’s.
Episode 14, I Am
Curious…Maddie - Mark Harmon’s character,
Sam, decides to confront David and tell him he’s not
good enough for Maddie. In a great scene at David’s
house, David sits there silently while Sam tells him in detail
why he’s wrong for her. It’s a great scene for
the simple reason that David says nothing and Sam ends up
looking like the loser. This eventually leads to David and
Maddie finally getting together after three seasons.
I surprisingly liked how the Sam story arc culminated in what
everyone knew would eventually happen. It’s really well
executed.
Video
In a
word, yes. Unlike most mid-‘80s shows which were shot
on videotape, Moonlighting was shot on film.
It’s evident here because the higher quality film allows
for excellent detail. Images are generally pretty sharp and
colors are solid. I noticed film grain on more than a few
occasions, but it’s never distracting.
Audio
It sounds fine. Music sounds good and
what’s most important is that you’ll never have
any issues understanding the many instances of overlapping
dialogue. It’s a clear audio transfer.
Extra Features
I was very pleasantly surprised by
the quality of extra features on this set.
 On
the fourth disc we get Memories of Moonlighting (29:11).
This is a little better than the average reunion documentary
not because the participants really had much to say, but more
because it was so impressive how many people they got for
it. Virtually every producer, writer and director who worked
on this season is interviewed here. And all four of the principle
actors including Booger were there. And as a bonus, since
he doesn’t really have anything else to do, Mark Harmon
was there, too. Cool stuff.
On the second disc, there’s Audio Commentary on
Big Man on Mulberry Street by co-executive producer Jay
Daniel. This commentary was actually more interesting to me
than the episode itself. Daniel liked the episode himself,
but he never really explains why he thinks it’s good.
He mostly just talked about the things he liked, which was
interesting enough, I guess. The most enlightening item from
this commentary was the revelation that the six and a half
minute dance sequence in the middle of the episode was directed
by none other than Stanley Donen, who also directed Singin’
in the Rain and one of my five favorite films of
all-time, Charade. It’s too bad they
didn’t get Donen to join him on the commentary because
Donen’s commentary on DVD for Charade is perhaps the best audio commentary I’ve ever listened
to.
Also on the second disc, there’s Audio Commentary
on Atomic Shakespeare again by Daniel, but this time
he’s joined by creator Glenn Gordon Caron and stars
Shepherd and Willis. This is the best of the four commentaries
in this DVD set because it simply has four people reliving
what was obviously a fun experience. This was an extremely
creative episode and the people involved certainly enjoyed
it and recall it fondly. I just wish Booger had joined them
for the commentary because he was great in the episode.
On the third disc we have Audio Commentary on The Straight
Poop by four fans of the show. These fans, all female,
were apparently the people behind the effort to get Moonlighting released on DVD and the people behind the website MoonlightingDVD.com.
I have no problem with allowing fans to record a commentary
for a DVD. I actually think it’s a good idea. But they
chose the wrong episode here. This episode, just the 34th
produced in the series, was a flashback clip show used to
fill time because the writers couldn’t come up with
new shows. The problem with this commentary is that the fans
recognized each clip and which episode it was from and they
basically did nothing but gush about how great they thought
the show was. Again, I don’t think it was a bad idea,
but I wish they had done the commentary on an episode which
had some depth.
Also on the third disc is Audio Commentary on Sam and
Dave by Caron and episode guest star Mark Harmon. An
interesting choice to have a guest star do a commentary for
an episode, but it works pretty well here. Caron and Harmon
discuss the genesis of Harmon’s story arc and how well
it played in the series. It sounds like Harmon really enjoyed
his experience on the show.
Also on the fourth disc we get trailers for two other Lions
Gate TV show DVDs, one for the first season of a show called Wildfire which I’ve never heard of,
and another for the first season of Weeds,
which is a show I enjoy.
Packaging
It’s nice. Four discs inside
a case which opens like a book with a disc on each page. The
packaging is very shiny and quite susceptible to fingerprints.
Inside, there’s a four page booklet with information
and a brief synopsis on each episode. And in what was perhaps
the best surprise in the whole set, you’ll find that
Booger gets his own disc art on the fourth disc. Booger should
be king.
 Parting
Words
I can’t say that Moonlighting was ever a favorite show and it likely never will be, but
I enjoyed this DVD set far more than I expected I would. There
are a lot of good episodes in this season and the show stands
the test of time very well. There will always be a place for
a silly comedy/drama with sharp wit and even sharper dialogue.
Dedicated fans will be very pleased with this release as Lions
Gate has come through with a solid group of extra features.
And the casual fan will like it as well because there’s
a lot of good programming here. Did I mention that Booger
gets his own disc? Yes, I did, but it’s worth mentioning
again because you can never reference Booger too many times,
can you? With a suggested retail price under $40 and readily
available online for less than $30, I heartily recommend this
set.
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