Moonlighting 5×05-5×08: I got a chance to watch some more Moonlighting episodes recently, so now I’m very close to finishing off Season 5 (and the entire series). It’s almost painful to watch these eps, though, because it’s like I can see the writers straining to provide the same kind of snappy dialogue that made the show so popular in the first place. It seems that every episode have David and Maddie talking over each other for no reason than just to exhibit that trademark simultaneous dialogue. But whereas this conceit worked in the first couple of seasons because of the underlying sexual tension, in this fifth season, it just felt like a tired ruse.
As for the episodes themselves… meh. I watched “Shirts and Skins”, “Take My Wife, for Example”, “I See England, I See France, I see Maddie’s Underpants”, and “Those Lips, Those Lies”, and none of them were memorable. “I See England, I See France” was a dumb Weekend at Bernie’s ripoff that featured a particularly ridiculous scene at the end where Maddie believes she’s in hell or something. “Those Lips, Those Lies” was pretty bad, too. Here again, it was as though the writers were simply reaching for something that worked in the past (in this case, an appearance by David’s brother Richard), but that fell completely flat when recycled.
At least I know the show was put out of its misery soon after these eps aired. Only 5 more to go now!