Moonlighting - Seasons 1 & 2
by Allan Arkush, Burt Brinckerhoff, Christian I. Nyby II, Christopher Hibler, Christopher Leitch
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Allyce Beasley, Bruce Willis, Cybill Shepherd, George Coe, Sid ConradDirector: Allan Arkush, Burt Brinckerhoff, Christian I. Nyby II, Christopher Hibler, Christopher Leitch
Brand: Lions Gate
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 5.1
Format: Box set, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD, Extra tracks, NTSC
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 1200 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2005-05-31
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Studio: Lions Gate
Movie Reviews of Moonlighting - Seasons 1 & 2
Movie Review: Classic show gets a classy presentation on DVD
Summary: 5 Stars
When Bruce Willis' appeared on "Moonlighting" he was an unknown actor who had done a "Twilight Zone" and a variety of miscellaneous guest appearances. You knew from his first scene he was going to be a big star. He had charisma. Former model Maddie Hayes (Cybil Shepherd) wakes up one morning to discover her accountants have ripped her off. She's broke. All she has left are the businesses she invested in. Her lawyer advises her to visit each one, sell it or close it down to liquidate the assets and become solvent again. When she visits the City of Angels Detective Agency (later the Blue Moon Detective Agency) she tries to do the same thing. Only David Addison (Bruce Willis) the manager of the agency has other plans in mind. He woos Maddie convincing her to not only keep the agency open but gets her involved in their latest case and wets her appetite for the biz and man does she get a buzz out of it.
Featuring top notch writing, direction and performances "Moonlighting" became a surprise hit for ABC. Unfortunately, by the 3rd season Willis and Shepherd were butting heads and the show had run into a creative dead end so "Moonlighting" became a hit series that experienced a brief, bright creative life and then faded away. Luckily, syndication kept the show alive for fans. Willis has gone on to bigger things and Shepherd has revived her several times since then but nothing could quite capture the magic of the original pairing and the first two marvelous seasons of the series.
Lion's Gate has done an extensive restoration on "Moonlighting". The series looks and sounds better than most series from the early 80's. There's occasional analog defects in the form of dirt and noticeable grain in some episodes but, on the whole, the show looks sharp with vivid colors and images. Interestingly, some of the episodes here run a bit short which leads me to suspect that the syndicated versions were used for the set although I haven't seen the series in so long I don't know which ones they may have used. If that's the case, I would guess that it was inadvertent and they also probably went with whatever prints were available on the release time table they had for the series. The audio is also quite good and, although the box states it's stereo, I don't recall the series being broadcast that way. My guess is that stereo masters were prepared and then mixed down to mono for the original broadcast episodes. The dialog is occasionally muffled and flat sounding and the volume is also quite low for most of these episodes.
We get three exceptional featurettes all of which have the participation of the original cast and/or crew of the series. "Not Just a Day Job" focuses on the creation of the show and the first season. There's interviews with Cybill Shepherd, creator/writer/producer Glenn Gordon Caron, director Robert Butler (who shot the pilot episode and, curiously shot many of the pilots for some of the most memorable shows from the 60's, 70's and 80's including "Star Trek"), Bruce Willis, Allyce Beasley and the staff writers for the first season. It's quite a comprehensive look at what made the show so successful. "Not Just a Day Job" appears on the first disc of the set.
"The Moonlighting Phenomenon focuses on the success of the show and its afterlife in syndication. A variety of folks from members of the Moonlighting Fan Club to creator Caron discussing why the show remains popular and has continued to resonate with fans. Caron discusses how he felt it was time to take the air out of detective shows which were ubiquitous on the networks during the 80's. Cybill Shepherd talks about the way that the show constantly broke down the TV "4th wall" cluing in the audience on the action and humor of the series pointing out that only certain characters (such as David Addison) could do it. Willis is pretty quiet throughout the interview but does make a couple of pointed comments about the chemistry of the show. Allyce Beasley points out that the work load was on Shepard and Willis the most since the network saw them as the focus of the show. The resulting pressure created conflicts between the two stars but also created additional "magic" on the screen. Like Lennon & McCartney the two of them were perfect from the first moment together on screen.
"Inside Blue Moon Detective Agency" has Caron pointing out that the network was making a huge profit on the series and how he pushed to have money ploughed back into the series. He also resented doing 22 episodes a year and the pressure of doing the series like any other TV show. Caron's issue was that the show cost more than other TV series. The network's issue was the fact that the show didn't always make its airdate. They literally would finish some episodes ½ before the show was scheduled to air. Shepherd felt that the series was so dense that it was like shooting a movie on a TV schedule. The inside joke was that they would make it up in their shots driving the car. By the way, you can spot the fact that they were rarely "driving" during these scenes but the chemistry and magic was there so they kept it. We also discover how Caron ended up having Orson Welles introduce the infamous black and white episode. Sadly, Welles died one week after the episode was shot. It would have been a blast to have him direct or write one episode of the series even though he was at the end of his career.
Commentary tracks are tricky to do effectively. Luckily, we get five here that are memorable and very well done. The pilot features Caron, pilot director Butler, producer Daniels, editor Mandelberg throwing out trivia throughout the entire 45 minute episode. "The Dream Sequence Always Rings Twice" featuring Peter Werner, Debra Frank (co-writer of the episode) and Glenn Gordon Caron also ranks pretty highly up there. Still, for my money the best of the commentary tracks are those by Cybill Shepherd and Bruce Willis on "Every Daughter is a Virgin" and "My Fair David" respectively. The two reveal quite a bit about the day-to-day production of the series but also some their issues during production as well.
A great 80's show that has aged very, very well, "Moonlighting" still has the magic. Lion's Gate has done a terrific job putting together this set. I'm happy to report they went to great lengths to restore the episodes here. The extras are great here as are most of the commentary tracks. I didn't find the packaging as much of an issue as one reviewer and felt it was good overall (particularly when compared to many other boxed sets where the discs are released as dual sided and face each other in the set insuring they'll get scratched).
Summary of Moonlighting - Seasons 1 & 2
MOONLIGHTING SEASONS 1 & 2 - DVD MovieGlamorous Maddie Hayes (Cybill Shepherd) is an ex-model with a problem--her accountant just ran off with her money. Granted, he did leave her with a few broken-down businesses. One happens to be a detective agency run by charming loudmouth David Addison (Bruce Willis). Her attempt to shutter the agency fails when they stumble across a crime and David convinces Maddie to help him solve it. And with that, one of television's most popular partnerships was born. Moonlighting made a star out of newcomer Willis and turned Shepherd (Taxi Driver), who had already found fame through fashion and film, into a bona fide TV star.
Created for ABC by Glenn Gordon Caron (Remington Steele), the romantic comedy/detective drama was a mid-season replacement that quickly became a hit. There were only six episodes in the first season, including the two-part pilot, but 18 were produced for the second. Rhyming receptionist Agnes DiPesto (Allyce Beasley) was a regular from the start, while Herbert Viola (Ray?s Curtis Armstrong) wouldn?t hit the scene until the third season (as with Paul Sorvino and Mark Harmon). The first two seasons attracted an eclectic array of guest stars, including Tim Robbins ("Gunfight at the So-So Corral"), Beasley's husband Vincent Schiavelli ("Next Stop Murder"), Dana Delany ("Knowing Her"), Richard Belzer ("Twas the Episode Before Christmas"), and Whoopi Goldberg ("Camille"), who earned an Emmy nomination for her performance. The most notable guest was surely Orson Welles, who introduces the black and white noir spoof "The Dream Sequence Always Rings Twice." It would be his final TV appearance. Moonlighting ran for three more years. While the Emmy-winning Willis would abandon TV for the big screen, Shepherd found subsequent small screen success with Cybill. Caron, meanwhile, would launch another mid-season replacement series which became a surprise hit: NBC's Medium with Patricia Arquette. --Kathleen C. Fennessy
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