MoonlightingBy Mark Englehart
Some television ages well, some doesn't. For every Mary
Tyler Moore Show that still rocks, there's a Family
Ties that's painfully mired in its era. One would think this would
be the case for Moonlighting, the detective series of the mid-1980s
starring Cybill Shepherd (on a career rebound) and Bruce Willis (then
unknown). The ingredients are all there: '80s fashion, hourlong TV mystery
plots, Wayfarer sunglasses... Fortunately--and gloriously--this is not the
case. As fresh as it was when it first aired, Moonlighting is a
prime example of groundbreaking television at its peak and a timeless
lesson in the science of star chemistry. Shepherd, as the ice-queen model
Maddie Hayes, and Willis, as the "do bears bear, do bees be?"
hipster-doofus David Addison, were the quintessential match made in hell,
thrown together under dubious circumstances.
In this pilot
episode, Shepherd, having discovered that her accountant has left her
broke, proceeds to liquidate her assets, including the City of Angels
Detective Agency, headed up by Willis. However, thanks to a dead body that
pops out of an elevator, the two pair up to solve a case involving a
broken watch and some pilfered Nazi loot, hoping to get some publicity
(and cash) for their newly rechristened Blue Moon Investigations. The plot
is negligible, involving a dead jogger, a mohawked hit man, and a sadistic
henchman, but the mystery was never Moonlighting's selling
point--it was the sparring, the swearing, the sparks that Willis and
Shepherd created together.
Watching these two at their best (before the series slid downhill when
they finally slept together), you'll realize that neither has ever been
paired with a better costar; they bring out something in each other that's
undiluted antagonism mixed with irresistible attraction. Discounting some
of Shepherd's fashion choices and hairstyles, and Willis's, well, hair (he
had some), this is timeless farce and screwball comedy in the tradition of
His Girl Friday, snappily penned by Glenn Gordon Carron. Also
featuring Allyce Beasley as rhyming secretary Agnes DiPesto, the only
supporting character in the series who could intrude upon the
Shepherd-Willis repartee without upsetting their rhythm.
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Moonlighting on
DVD! |
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