TALE OF THE CARROT AND THE SHTICK

The Los Angeles Times

Los Angeles, Calif.; May 16, 1986;

By: HOWARD ROSENBERG;

Abstract:

ABC's peachy "Moonlighting" ended its first full season Tuesday with Maddie (Cybill Shepherd) and David (Bruce Willis) getting that gleam in their eyes. It was the kind of rare, extraordinary episodic TV that you wanted to freeze-frame, a season-ending cliffhanger-"Moonlighting" style, not a mysterious whodunit, but an erotic willtheydoit?

"[Whoopi Goldberg] called us and said she'd love to do the show," [Glenn Caron] said. "Then there was a discussion about doing something like `Hail the Conquering Hero' (a 1944 movie about an Army reject mistaken for a war hero). The episode was written by executive story consultant Roger Director. Producer/writer Jeff Reno suggested the characters be shown leaving the set. "And I was the one who wondered how we were going to tie everything up emotionally," Caron said.

Whereupon Maddie informed a relieved Goldberg that her character would reform and become a better person. David told [Judd Nelson] that his character would go to prison, become a lawyer and write a jail-house novel that would be made into a movie starring Robert De Niro. Nelson said he could live with that.

Full Text:

The "Moonlighting" sonata plays on.

ABC's peachy "Moonlighting" ended its first full season Tuesday with Maddie (Cybill Shepherd) and David (Bruce Willis) getting that gleam in their eyes. It was the kind of rare, extraordinary episodic TV that you wanted to freeze-frame, a season-ending cliffhanger-"Moonlighting" style, not a mysterious whodunit, but an erotic willtheydoit?

Stepping out of character, Maddie and David said goodby for the season and seemed on the verge of embracing or at least uttering something intensely romantic. Then . . . the episode ended, leaving viewers to only imagine what next season will bring.

After all those episodes of teasing around the titillating edges of You Know What, will Maddie and David finally get it on next fall? Will they load up and pull the trigger? Will they snap, crackle and pop the cork? Fan the flirt and remove the skirt? Snuggle and huggle? Will they light the flame and play the game? Hubba the rubba and rubba the hubba? Will they ration the passion or say "OK" and roll in the hay?

"You can only tease viewers for so long," said Glenn Caron, executive producer of prime-time's sexiest, zestiest, best hour.

Uh oh.

The idealistic, shoulder-padded Maddie owns the goofy, near-clientless Blue Moon Detective Agency, and the pragmatic David is her right-hand wisecracker. Their relationship is shaped, colored and punctuated by their competitiveness and an excruciatingly omnipresent sexual tension. They mentally pull back the sheets, but never quite make it into bed. As a viewer, you feel everything, but see almost nothing. It's gorgeously tantalizing. But . . . .

"The fact that the relationship kept moving forward this season isn't going to stop," Caron continued. "We got to the precipice. The carrot we're dangling in front of the viewer is that maybe they become more intimate."

Maybe? The plot thickens, the pulse quickens.

But isn't Caron tempting, yes, fate? NBC's now-canceled "Remington Steele" seemed to lose something when Laura and Remington got especially cozy. And so did the hit "Cheers" when combative Sam and Diane leaped off the romantic precipice together after their first season, although their ratings dramatically rose as the sexual tension between them declined.

"All these people criticized `Cheers,' " Caron said, "but I think what `Cheers' did was great. Sure the next season was different than the first. But I think it's masochistic to take two people who seem to be destined for each other and ask an audience not to see them get together."

"Moonlighting" has been doing fine in the ratings, and is a wonderful mesh of writing, directing, editing and acting, a show that launches old forms into TV moon shots. It is one of ABC's few blue-chippers, and last Tuesday night it again led its time period, including topping "Second Serve," the highly publicized Renee Richards story on CBS.

"That surprised me," Caron said. "I really thought, quite frankly, we wouldn't get seen."

Thank goodness it did get seen, for the episode was a prize, with Whoopi Goldberg as a likable con artist mistaken for a heroine while being pursued by a crooked investigator played by Judd Nelson.

That part of it was merely fun. What lifted the hour even higher was the way everyone stepped out of character in the last 15 minutes, which "Moonlighting" has periodically done a la Bob Hope and Bing Crosby in their old "Road" movies.

"Whoopi called us and said she'd love to do the show," Caron said. "Then there was a discussion about doing something like `Hail the Conquering Hero' (a 1944 movie about an Army reject mistaken for a war hero). The episode was written by executive story consultant Roger Director. Producer/writer Jeff Reno suggested the characters be shown leaving the set. "And I was the one who wondered how we were going to tie everything up emotionally," Caron said.

It went this way:

Nelson's character was about to blow everyone away when his gun was confiscated by the show's property man. "Season's over, the set's coming down," said a stagehand.

Limos were ordered for Goldberg and Nelson, who then complained that the episode was incomplete and their characters not fully developed.

"Maddie and I have done tons of these," said David. "We'll tell you how it ends."

Whereupon Maddie informed a relieved Goldberg that her character would reform and become a better person. David told Nelson that his character would go to prison, become a lawyer and write a jail-house novel that would be made into a movie starring Robert De Niro. Nelson said he could live with that.

Then Maddie and David bade a season's goodby to their guileless receptionist, Ms. Dipesto (Allyce Beasley), and headed for the 20th Century Fox parking lot to say their sexy final goodbys.

"Well . . . . "

"Well . . . . "

"So . . . . "

"So . . . . "

They began walking in opposite directions toward their cars, when David suddenly pivoted. "Maddie," he said. "David," she answered. He paused, then added, "Nah . . . it'll wait til fall."

And it will.