|
2007-2008 Season Post-Mortem Part 6: "Moonlight" |
|
Tuesday, 03 June 2008 |
|
|
By John Keegan
Visit Critical Myth for an archive of John's TV Review archives, with more than 1100 entries.
| This season, I’ll be summing up this unusual 2007-2008 season with a post-mortem on the majority of the shows I’ve reviewed during the year, ranking from the very worst to the very best. In some cases, the term “post-mortem” is all too applicable. This is Part 6 of this 11-step journey, focusing on the first season of “Moonlight”.
“Moonlight”, like the far less successful “Bionic Woman”, suffered tremendous internal obstacles over the course of its single season run. The original pilot presentation led to a massive recasting and reshaping for the series, leaving only the central figure of Alex O’Laughlin intact. All things being equal, the recasting was a good move, bringing the talents of Jason Dohring and Sophia Myles to the project.
Even so, an early shuffle of showrunners challenged the writers and the cast. Myles was saddled with an unnatural American accent, and it clearly took some time for her to adjust to her role. The full pilot episode was uninspired, laying some important groundwork in the most expedient manner possible. Early indications were grim, as critics panned the show mercilessly.
What they didn’t count on (and what CBS ultimately ignored) was the clear intent of the series. One of the most popular subgenres in romance fiction is currently “paranormal romance”. The series was practically designed to fall square in the center of that subgenre, with the difficult romance between Mick and Beth dominating almost every episode. Mick and Beth developed a compelling chemistry, and that worked beautifully in terms of selling the show to its intended audience.
That led to loyalty, and while the ratings for “Moonlight” were never atmospheric, they were amazingly steady for a genre show in a Friday night death slot. The fans were also deeply devoted to the series and were organizing to save the show from cancellation long before the effects of the writers’ strike could be felt.
For many shows, the writers’ strike represented a triple whammy. First, it killed any momentum that a season might develop. In the case of “Moonlight”, as a rookie show, the damage was lessened by the fact that they only had a limited order of episodes in the first place (as is normal for new shows). Still, the original arc ended just before the writers’ strike took hold, thus preventing the writers from segueing directly into a new storyline.
This led to the second problem. Because the story came to a relative close, there was far too much time for the networks to consider alternatives. There was also too much time for networks to interfere with the production of the series, which led to additional showrunning issues. By the time the network ordered four more episodes for later in the spring, the existing showrunner was gone and the writing staff was left to pick up the pieces and march forward.
The final problem was simply one of strike timing. Had the writers’ strike been resolved quickly, the rest of the season could have been ordered. Once the strike strayed into January, it was much more of a concern. By then the show was off the air for weeks, and pilot season was still viable. For existing shows on the bubble, the best case scenario was a longer, protracted strike that would kill off any immediate pilot competition. Instead, the strike was resolved early enough for the networks to consider replacing mid-level performers, and “Moonlight” was on that list.
Creatively, the show managed to maintain itself despite all the challenges, and it ended much better than it began with a Critical Myth average rating of 7.6. Contrast this to the other freshman series with production issues, “Bionic Woman”, and the end product is all the more impressive. Unfortunately, the end result for both shows was cancellation. For all its early struggles, “Moonlight” certainly didn’t deserve it.
|
