Moonlighting

The series is actually better than you remember it.

Watching this, you can remember why Cybill Shepherd was a star and Bruce Willis was about to become one.

Glen Gordon Caron had a three-series deal with the network, and his first two ideas had flopped. The network told him to make number three a boy-girl detective show, but Caron had no interest in doing a detective show-- so he made this, instead.

Now, technically it is a detective show. And many of the detective stories are quite good-- the show was especially good at creating moody, intriguing set-ups that played in the beginning of the show before our main characters even showed up. Usually the mystery was a device for provoking discussion of the week's theme. But once the relationship between David and Maddy found traction, the show could often dispense with any pretense at detecting entirely.

That was fine. The banter, the overlapping dialogue, the patented three-times delivery of the same line-- all gave the show a panache and rhythm that just make it fun to watch. And in the middle of the second season, the show began to erode the fourth wall, becoming hilariously self-referential, until in the season 2 finale, the chase sequence (they had many great chase sequences) goes off the set and the villainous Judd Nelson is foiled in the end because a grip collects his prop gun. Dave and Maddy say good-bye for the summer, get in their cars, and drive off the lot.

By the third season, the show had hit its stride in everything but meeting a production schedule, but even the frequent reruns that greeted viewers are addressed directly in the show itself. It's the third season that plays so much better on dvd, because we can finally watch, for instance, the David-Maddy-Sam episodes back to back. We also get "Big Man on Mulberry Street"-- complete with Billy Joel song and Stanley Donen dance sequence, plus the mega-costly-for-the-time "Taming of the Shrew" episode.

Other features? Though Moonlighting was a hot ticket, you won't see that many amazing guest stars. Mark Harmon, Whoopie Goldberg, Robert Wuhl (very briefly), Donna Dixon, and a whole lot of eighties tv actors who will make you go, "Hey, it's that guy!"

And it is eighties to the max. The hair, the outfits, the shoulder pads, the music-- it is like a time capsule for 1986-87.

Extras? Some great new documentaries which manage to get Caron, Willis and Shepherd in the same room (though they still don't look entirely happy about it) that produce some great reminiscences.

By season four the show had not exactly jumped the shark, but the lightning was starting to leak out of the bottle. But the first three seasons are absolutely worth watching.