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Post by satirise on Dec 30, 2020 14:31:22 GMT -5
I don't think the kiss was real, it's in the same vein as 'Twas the Episode..., but it doesn't matter that much, it's still a demonstration of Maddie's state of mind. Which is why her behaviour in Blonde on Blonde feels unnatural and, more importantly, gimmicky to me, it just doesn't follow from her trajectory in episodes 2, 4, 6, and 8 of that season. MacGillicuddy's actions, well, that's another gimmick, I guess. He only does it because the episode needs him to so it can play out the way it needs to. It's still a great episode, but that particular rough edge could have been polished a bit more. I think you’re right about the kiss. I suspect Maddie’s state of mind at the end of this episode is pretty fungible-and, given that this is a fantasy, it’s fine if she/we imagine a Very Merry for her and Dave. I do disagree with you about BoB, though. Is it so awful for Maddie to come to the conclusion, after months alone, that she’d like some companionship? Given how she handled the whole subsequent Sam and Dave business-essentially, rejecting them both-it doesn’t shock me that she’d seek a “meaningless” fling with someone. She had her choice of a LTR with one of two archetypes, the straight-laced astronaut and the devil may care rake, and walked away from both. I guess I’d chalk it up to what Sydney Pollack’s character said in the movie “Michael Clayton”: “people are (bleeping) incomprehensible.” It's definitely not awful for Maddie to feel that way, it's just a sharp break from her path that season: she and David grow extremely close, learn a ton about each other, go on a date, fantasise about each other, they enable each other's growth. Her reasoning during the love triangle and her objections to David are definitely not invalid, but I don't think it's right to apply them retroactively: at the start of Blonde of Blonde, Sam's not anywhere close to being in the picture, and without him, David hasn't had the opportunity to compromise his chances. The thing is, and it's my general take on the entire Sam storyline, in episodes 11-14, I believe the writers consciously chased ratings, probably for the first time in the show's run. We got some great television out of it, sure, but going from episode 8 to episode 11 feels really abrupt. Now, it's not quite psychologically unrealistic for Maddie to feel adrift even with things going well, but when her mood changes so suddenly, I can't see it as earned, or rather, as properly built up to in previous episodes.
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Post by notjuanjones on Dec 31, 2020 0:24:47 GMT -5
But isn’t that, essentially, the whole season 2-3 arc: Maddie not being able to center David as “the one” for her? They do get close; they do become friends of a sort; they are incredibly attracted to each other. But Maddie can’t commit to it-or, at least, to him. (Nor is she attached to the agency: she sells it midway thru season 2 (“Atlas..”) to Lou LaSalle, and whatever the truth of “IAWJ,” which is near the end of S3, just before the Sam arc starts, she’s STILL at least contemplating in her head what it would be like to be free of Blue Moon; her despair only comes when she sees David-not destitute or desperate...and with Cheryl Tiegs!)
Even after they consummate the relationship, and David desperately wants to tell everyone they’re together, Maddie says no-then leaves for Chicago.
I’m not judging her on this. I’m just saying it’s clear that no matter how close they get or how much she may contemplate being with David, she can’t get herself there. She can’t commit. Which leaves her...lonely. And so, if a long term relationship isn’t in her cards, a one-nighter with someone she doesn’t know will suffice.
I was an acquaintance of someone many years ago. We didn’t work together but we’d run into one another from time to time. I wouldn’t even say we were friends. I was attracted to her, but there wasn’t the slightest hint on her part that she was interested. Which was fine. Anyway, I run into her one night at an event. We make small talk for a couple of minutes. And then, out of the blue and with absolutely no prompting on my part, she says, ‘God, I am so horny.’ And left like a minute later. It just happens.
Also: I definitely agree that the Sam arc was a ratings grab. But, at that point, everyone in the country was like, ‘would you two just sleep with other already??”
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Post by satirise on Dec 31, 2020 12:56:44 GMT -5
It's a very good point that it should be considered along S2 and S4. I suppose I tend to disregard S4 a little because Maddie's actions in it seem so heavily affected by production troubles, and so they don't have to be realistic, just shootable, and even accepting S4 at face value, I wouldn't necessarily use the future to explain the past, because the future carries more of a burden of constant developments. S2 still stands, though. Maddie tries to get her old life back, to sell the agency. But then, she immediately regrets it (and it's a whole year before this episode, a lot happens in between). Well, maybe she's not as consistent as she'd like to think. Still, while people's actions can seem incomprehensible, 35 episodes in, she's well-fleshed out. More so than David, maybe. Again, I'm not opposed to changes to the range of what a character is likely to do, my issues is with how they're written.
In particular, we have several direct insights into her subconscious and how it evolves. In the black-and-white episode, she's apprehensive about a relationship with someone like David. In the spontaneity one, much less so, they've both grown. In the Joel episode, it drives her to fly across the country in the middle of the night, and finally, in this one... I have to say I see it differently. She pictures David's getting married to Tiegs as settling, as consolation. The subtext of their outcomes is then that they're the best possible thing for each other. And that's Maddie's mind telling her that. Or it's a real It's a Wonderful Life scenario and it's objectively true. I'm fine either way.
I know there's a scene somewhere in early-to-mid S3 (or late S2?) that would further my argument, something about her gravitating towards a relationship, about her and/or the show treating it as a long-term given, but I can't remember what it was for the life of me. [Edit 2: I don't think it was the car scene in this episode, the one about people being meant for each other, but I'm not sure.]
I assume for people who watched it back in the 80s, on a weekly basis of reruns, the flow of the season was much more blurred and it didn't seem as disjointed (you get this episode, the clip show, the DiPesto episode, and Blonde on Blonde, so essentially this and then Blonde on Blonde), you were just grateful to catch anything new.
Edit: I'm really happy to finally be able to discuss the show, it can't be streamed and so it's like it never existed to most people these days.
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Post by notjuanjones on Jan 1, 2021 11:52:45 GMT -5
I totally get your S4...ennui?....though ATTTM might be my favorite episode of the entire series. I would just say much-not all-of S4 is consistent with much of Maddie's previous behavior/thoughts towards David. (The only ttruly discordant action she takes is, of course, marrying Walter Bishop-but as you say, all of S4 has to be viewed primarily as what was expedient given Cybill's pregnancy, Bruce's injury, etc.)
As for S2..."Dream Sequence" is obviously Dave's/Maddie's joint subconsciousness at work, so, sure, she's thinking about how/what she thinks about him. I assume you're referring to "The Man Who Cried Wife" as the "spontaneity" episode. (That was a truly bizarre episode; why D/M don't immediately go to the police and have Bower arrested for attempted murder is beyond odd. Maddie's anger that David still wants the case should have been trumped, as she is hardly one to see the gray areas of life, by the fact that Bower committed a capital crime, whether or not he got away with it. Also: the whole notion of debating domestic violence as an example of "spontaneous" behavior is just...awful.)
The whole question on which BMOMS rests is 'why does Maddie fly to New York?' Does she care about David and want to be there for him in a moment of personal anguish for him? Yes...but she also wants to know about his old life in NYC and meet/confront his ex! (It's the mirror episode of "Money Talks, Maddie Walks.") The scene with Miss Dipesto makes it clear Maddie's curiousity about David's past is driving her decisions as much as her feelings for David. And I think we just see the David/Tiegs scene in IAWJ differently. I don't know of any man (and, I suspect, very few women) who would view a man getting married to Cheryl Tiegs in 1985/86 as anything approaching "settling." David may tell Richie he wonders what happened to Maddie Hayes, but he then re-joins the party and his fiance, who just happens to be a model, and a wildly successful one, and looks perfectly happy. The regret is Maddie's. I could be wrong.
I can definitely tell you fan frustrations in not getting new/timely episodes in S3 and S4 were substantial. It was so deflating to get yet another rerun or (all due respect) a Bert-Agnes vehicle. It did make it very difficult to follow any kind of season arc.
And it's nice to see people are still interested in a show that aired 35 years ago! Amazing. Happy New Year to everyone.
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Post by satirise on Jan 1, 2021 17:24:19 GMT -5
Huh, I actually have this pet view (and nothing more than a pet view) that the Walter Bishop thing was on the cusp of making sense, they just didn't invest enough screentime and into making it plausible. But I fast-forwarded through way too much of S4, at least as of now, to discuss if it was consistent with the previous seasons. Based on how hated it is, I assumed the consensus was that it wasn't.
As for "The Man Who Cried Wife," well, I think a few things are at play there. For all of Caron's talk about finding 'the truth' of the story, there are what, five cases over five seasons that actually hold water? No-one ever watched the show because they liked clockwork-like mysteries. Then, of course, it was the eighties, some of the things on the show do make you uncomfortable, and I suppose TV writing didn't go on autopilot the way it does now (it still did, just in less refined ways). 15 or 30 years later, every crime/medical case/mystery-of-the-week show always had situations that tied in perfectly with what was going on with the leads' personal lives, but Moonlighting only did it a handful of times, especially early on, and sometimes, like in the case of this episode, quite clumsily. It's like the spontaneity storyline was developed separately and then was hammered together with the uxoricide.
In the case of BMOMS, maybe it's my turn to see things as being on rails, but Maddie's curiosity still seems a function of her wide-ranging interest.
I gave the Cheryl Tiegs sequence a quick rewatch, and I'm still struck by how wistful and incomplete David is. To me, the progression of information reveals represents Maddie peeling the layers of her own feelings, of her progressively admitting that David can be a success (or even, interestingly, that she's prejudiced against him in that regard to protect herself from seeing him as an option), that she'd be hurt if he were with someone else, that she thinks she means a lot to him. By the way, when Maddie asks the angel if she's getting married to David, she seems happy for a shot, but I'm not sure if they just didn't have time for one more take. It's Moonlighting, they probably didn't.
I view it as the joke of the scene (driven home by David making sure that Tiegs is not just with him for his looks) that literally everyone in the world sees David as about as lucky as you can get, but David himself has this quiet moment of longing for what could have been before carrying on with the best outcome available under the circumstances. Also, in general, he isn't one to let underlying sadness stay on the surface for long, so him looking happy dancing with Tiegs doesn't mean that he is so definitely and unconditionally. Edit: in the last shot of him and Tiegs dancing, after the talk with Richie, he doesn't look happy to me at all.
Happy New Year!
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Post by sandra on Jan 2, 2021 5:24:54 GMT -5
So interesting to read your discussion, notjuanjones and satarise! Like you said, notjuanjones; how nice to see that, 35 years after this show aired, people are still interested in it. Can I join in? Because reading about your thoughts made me think about my own perspective. Like with BoB; when I first saw it, I was 12 years old, so at that time, Maddie's actions in it seemed a bit off to me. Now that I'm rewatching everything, I don't see everything through a teenager's mind anymore. Haha! Now, I get where Maddie is coming from. She's been alone for a long time and she had needs. There's nothing strange about that. I do agree that the episodes after that sometimes felt rushed. People wanted Maddie and David to sleep together, so they pushed things along a bit fast towards the end of season 3. Not that I'm complaining, because I absolutely loved MTTC, but the build up could have been somewhat better. I guess the rushing also happened because of Cybill's pregnancy and Bruce's injury.
As for IAWJ, I agree with Satarise that David seems a bit wistful in the Cheryl Tiegs scene. Not that he's complaining about marrying Cheryl, but he gets this faraway look when he talks about Maddie.
Anyway, I'm not the best debater, but it's nice to see how your discussions keep this message board alive. Happy New Year to you!
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Post by notjuanjones on Jan 2, 2021 13:10:01 GMT -5
So interesting to read your discussion, notjuanjones and satarise! Like you said, notjuanjones; how nice to see that, 35 years after this show aired, people are still interested in it. Can I join in? Because reading about your thoughts made me think about my own perspective. Like with BoB; when I first saw it, I was 12 years old, so at that time, Maddie's actions in it seemed a bit off to me. Now that I'm rewatching everything, I don't see everything through a teenager's mind anymore. Haha! Now, I get where Maddie is coming from. She's been alone for a long time and she had needs. There's nothing strange about that. I do agree that the episodes after that sometimes felt rushed. People wanted Maddie and David to sleep together, so they pushed things along a bit fast towards the end of season 3. Not that I'm complaining, because I absolutely loved MTTC, but the build up could have been somewhat better. I guess the rushing also happened because of Cybill's pregnancy and Bruce's injury. As for IAWJ, I agree with Satarise that David seems a bit wistful in the Cheryl Tiegs scene. Not that he's complaining about marrying Cheryl, but he gets this faraway look when he talks about Maddie. Anyway, I'm not the best debater, but it's nice to see how your discussions keep this message board alive. Happy New Year to you! I'd defend GGC and crew a little on the "rushed" nature of the end of S3, on a couple of levels. One, as noted before, America was getting sick of, as David put it, 'two years of is you is or is you ain't?' between him and Maddie. I don't think the show could have taken another six months to a year of waiting for D and M to consummate their relationship (I believe the actual, real delay between the first-run airing of IACM to end S3 and ATTTM to begin S4 was 11 months). Two, Cybill was indeed already pregnant by the end of S3, IIRC, so time was already of the essence. Three, I'm no drama writer, but I suspect GGC and company thought there needed to be some kind of catalytic event to push D and M into each other's arms. It couldn't just happen "naturally;" each of them (well, mostly, Maddie) had built up so many barriers to actually going through with it. David had to face a murder rap (and the odd willingness of Donna Dixon to cop to it; she was like Janet Leigh's character in "The Manchurian Candidate;" I suspect we'll never exactly know her motivations) before he screwed up the courage to go to Maddie's and tell her he loved her. I think we'll just agree to disagree on IAWJ. :-) And Happy New Year to you as well.
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Post by satirise on Jan 2, 2021 16:04:53 GMT -5
Like with BoB; when I first saw it, I was 12 years old, so at that time, Maddie's actions in it seemed a bit off to me. Now that I'm rewatching everything, I don't see everything through a teenager's mind anymore. Haha! Now, I get where Maddie is coming from. She's been alone for a long time and she had needs. There's nothing strange about that. I do agree that the episodes after that sometimes felt rushed. That's interesting. I feel it would be the opposite with me: what makes me question the cohesiveness of Maddie's actions (pre-Sam, mind you, so pretty much the start of Blonde on Blonde) is the baggage of age and experience, both of life and of how television writers reason. And that's my original point: before Blonde on Blonde, the writing team had been writing a sequence of one-hour movies. For the rest of S3, they wrote television: serialised and designed to keep people watching to regain those wilting ratings by raising the stakes as high as possible. It's not a bad thing in itself, but moving the pieces into their necessary positions could have been smoother. Maddie had been lonely since she was 14, she could reasonably be expected to grow fed up with it, but over such a long timescale, I believe a psychological catalyst would have to appear to make her act. They actually provided David with one to break with his settled behavioural pattern of not acting on his feelings that very episode, so why were they happy with "because she has to for the episode to happen" as a reason for Maddie to do something un-Maddie-like? Notjuanjones, I definitely see all of your points about defending the writers. Still, America has survived much worse since then, and even before. I haven't seen "Cheers," but Rachel and Ross and Mulder and Scully kept the country waiting for so much longer, not to mention all those "Moonlighting lite" shows like "Castle." But then, the TV watching experience was so different back in the 80s, before DVDs and streaming, not to mention the fact that this show, along with "Cheers," pretty much introduced this sort of dynamic between the leads. I'd be interested in seeing a detailed schedule of when each episode was written and shot, it would perhaps explain quite a lot. I know the S4 opener was shot very early in the summer of '87, for instance. I wonder how big of a factor Shepherd's pregnancy was in moving forward with getting Maddie and David together. It certainly was in S4, to the extent that I've considered Walter Bishop might have had something to do with that alleged Caron-or-Shepherd ultimatum, perhaps as opening an avenue to write Maddie out of the show. But maybe I'm leaning too heavily on that view of TV writing as extremely conditioned by fleeting circumstances. I was going to end this post by saying that those final five episodes are like "Moonlighting" in general: beautiful and flawed. But then the cynic in me considered that it hadn't been that flawed before them (the cynic within the cynic has a long list of counter-examples). Still, the obstacles facing the show in 1987 were so severe that what they were able to achieve between Blonde on Blonde and the end of S4 is quite impressive, even it those were not always the best possible choices.
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