‘Moonlighting’
The Sopranos and The Larry Sanders Show are widely credited with ushering in the Prestige TV era, but the 90 minute pilot of Moonlighting — now available to stream for the very first time thanks to Hulu — should certainly be considered a formative text. Much like the famed pilot episode of Miami Vice, it’s a remarkable piece of television history largely because it barely feels like television at all (especially if you lived through the ’80s and remember how bad TV was at the time).
Out of the gate, the Glenn Gordon Caron creation fires on all cylinders, introducing viewers to the glamorous Maddie Hayes (Cybill Shepherd), a former model who finds herself in a pickle when her shady accountants run away with all of her money, and David Addison (Bruce Willis), a brash, verbose head of a struggling detective agency. The rat-a-tat dialogue crackles with wit and verve, the characters feel fully formed and lived-in from the moment you meet them, the smooth jazz score sets the mood, and there’s even a few action-driven set pieces that feel super cinematic. Younger viewers might blanche at the interactions between David and Maddie — he calls her a “stone cold bitch” within minutes of meeting her, and there’s multiple instances of physical violence between the two — but the crackling chemistry between Willis and Shepherd is undeniably the stuff of legends.