![]() ![]() No, instead the focus here is the cause and effect relationship of many factors that decree that a film noir structure is necessary to get the point of this story across. This isn’t them just watching a bunch of old movies during an afternoon and passing out with their subconscious running wild, or Maddie and David turning to noir romances to fix their own fractured relationship. This is thoroughly made clear and perpetuated by the fact that David and Maddie’s case is from the ‘40s, when this romanticized sort of structure was commonplace. Noir and dream sequences should have a symbiotic relationship together. This even calls back to the roots of the genre, and the way in which beleaguered private investigators would solve cases by retreating into their minds. ![]() The entry is smart to employ the idea of pairing dream sequences together with film noir rather than going with one or the other. ![]() As the two of them daydream on the matter, the episode turns into a glowing black-and-white love letter to 1940s noir cinema. The installment sees David and Maddie investigating an unsolved crime from 1948. Their season two episode “The Dream Sequence Always Rings Twice” is particularly exemplary of this. Problems aside, Moonlighting is still a powerful piece of television that was never afraid to do things differently. Other entries focused entirely on side characters, even if such a dynamic was counter to what the series had carefully cultivated so far. In the show’s later seasons, episodes would operate solely with David or Maddie rather than the both of them. The series would regularly turn to reruns, clip shows, or alternatives to accommodate Shepherd and Willis’ exhaustion. A frayed relationship between Shepherd and Willis combined with frequently ambitious episodes ( Moonlighting scripts were often close to one hundred pages due to the shows rapid-fire dialogue) would lead to constant complications. There were a wealth of concept episodes, with many being hearty qualifiers for future “Structurally Sounds.” The series very much felt like Community before Community existed, right down to the tumultuous relationship the network shared with the showrunner, Glenn Gordon Caron.īehind-the-scenes issues that increasingly plagued production also stirred up a lot of discussion. It might just have seemed like a charming detective show, but Moonlighting was breaking the fourth wall constantly, reinventing the medium, and just oozing style. The smoldering will they/won’t they chemistry that fueled David Addison (a pre -Die Hard, pre-action star Bruce Willis) and Maddie Hayes’ (Cybill Shepherd) exploits at the Blue Moon Detective Agency became appointment television for the five years that it ran on ABC, beginning in ’85. Moonlighting is the sort of television show that gave a reason to write about television. But this is television, so we won’t get into that.” We would see more of each other, then all of each other. ![]() ‘Structurally Sound’ is a recurring feature where each week a different structurally unusual, rule-breaking anomaly of an episode from a comedy series is examined. ![]()
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