23 July 2008

Not For J-Bro

because she is a hater of the Moonlighting. And this post is mostly about Moonlighting. Fair warning.

So last night, I went to the home of the Lady Rebecca, bottle of white wine and Moonlighting season 5 in hand. We have been trying to get through this final season since my birthday in February, but it is so awful that we've had a hard time. (The season begins with an episode devoted to Maddie's fetus--played by Bruce Willis--who she miscarries right after we find out that the baby is, indeed, Maddie and David's. Bruce Willis sucks his thump and bounces on a trampoline a lot in this episode. It is painful and upsetting.)

In order to finish, we had to get through the last 4 episodes. Well, really just 3, since one of them was a Burt/Agnes episode, and we just fast forwarded through it. Anyway, this was a poorly conceived idea on our parts. 1) We drank the whole bottle of wine, and we'd both been drinking earlier in the evening too. 2) We had no business intertwining the end of Moonlighting and my approaching departure from Austin. Frankly, both of those things are bleak enough as it is without piling one on top of the other.

The final episode is especially upsetting, because 10 minutes before the end, the show goes into the meta-television mode that it had done so well in the early seasons. It discusses the cancellation of the show, and the fans' disappointment with the way that the romance between David and Maddie devolved in the last 2 seasons. Then there is a clip montage, which serves only to remind us of how much we did, indeed, love watching these two fall in love, and how truly horrendous it was to watch the show unravel. In other words, the final episode pours salt into the psychic wounds left by the show, and doesn't provide ANY closure at all. Thanks for that, crappy Moonlighting writers.

Rebecca turned off the television and asked me if there were really ever any good series finales. We were hard pressed to think of one, save the end of Six Feet Under. (And that WAS so good that we both got a little teary-eyed just talking about Claire driving away and looking in her rear-view mirror. True story. When I finally saw the last episode I cried so hard that I made myself throw up.) Rebecca also liked the last episode of Sex and the City. I have no opinion about this, as I have never seen a full episode of that damn show. (Now that I think about it, I sort of liked the end of Deadwood too, although I was pissed that 1) it was ending at all and 2) that they killed off my most favorite character.)

***

In other news about my entertainment consumption--I have now watched the first 4 episodes of the first season of Hill Street Blues. Get ready for it, people, I have plenty to say about that. But I want to watch a little more first.

***

And I rented the Joy Division documentary. It's so good that I went out and immediately also got the biopic Control. You don't have to watch both. But you should watch one--preferably the documentary--unless you really like Samantha Morton. I don't dislike Samantha Morton, but I can't see her and not remember her in Minority Report and that just makes me think about the Dickmen (about whom I think I wrote about on the myspace blog, yes?) and that is just NO GOOD.

What I learned by watching the doc is that I love Peter Hook, and he looks like Alan Rickman. They could be brothers, actually. And although I would love to be a Joy Division fan, because it seems cool somehow, I frankly prefer the pop sensibility of New Order, and I probably always will.

Let's face it. I'm pretty mainstream.

5 comments:

qwanty said...

1) I shouldn't have read the paragraph on series finales. Why oh why didn't I stop?

2) He sucked his thump? Even I find that revolting.

Anonymous said...

haha! you referred to your impending departure as "bleak"! see, you DO love it here!

Marcus said...

Wow Kris, I didn't realize that [extremely witty "Bruce Willis sucked his thump" joke] unless you're Demi Moore! Ha ha ha!

Damn you qwanty, always one step ahead.

fsk said...

ok this post makes me want to watch moonlighting. but there's something about watching tv on dvd and arriving at the inevitable end that just leaves me depressed. for a moment i always think, "what can fill this void now?"

you should watch the sopranos just so you can weigh in on that finale. there is something in that finale you might particularly like.

and i'm glad to hear more people have cried at the six feet under one. i cried a lot. a lot.

Old Man Duggan said...

Carnivale's finale (despite its naturally frustrating open-endedness) was great.

The Wonder Years finale was great.

SFU's finale was possibly the best finale ever. Absolutely tear inducing.

Cheers?

Angel's finale was great. Certainly better than Buffy's, which I am not sure how I feel about.

Seconding the mention of The West Wing and The Office UK (is there another one?) as well.

Arrested Development's was great, too.