Moonlight (1.16)

Friday, May 16, 2008 @ 9 PM

CBS

Moonlight, Season 1, Episode #16 – “Sonata” – Series Finale

CBS.com 

Manatee: As I made my way home Friday at 10:30 PM, I realized I had something to look forward to on my DVR – the last episode of Moonlight… ever.  There was a rumor this week that though CBS canceled the show, the CW might pick it up.  All that was was a vicious rumor of hope.   When I realized I had 47 minutes left to watch, I said to Marmot, “I better get home and get this over with.” 

 

Marmot said to me, “Savor it.”

 

Savor it?  What’s Marmot talking about.  Why even bother watching the show when it’s the last one?  Aren’t I just setting myself up for disappointment?

 

I started the show and cringed as the info feature on the DVR displayed: “In the series finale…” My heart sank.  Why am I having this reaction?  I have written about this show for weeks now, knocking it, and myself for liking it.  But at the end of the day, I’m attached.

 

I could write an angry letter to CBS and enclose pints of my own blood (gross) a la Jericho fans.  But what would that get us Moonlight fans – seven low budget, throw away episodes in March of 2009, that look awful, don’t really advance the plot – basically a disgrace to the integrity of the show.  Looking back now, as I am (was) a Jericho fan as well – when CBS pulled the plug, they should have bowed out gracefully with Johnston’s death in the season one finale. 

 

I could rant about the state of Television, and how only terrible, dumbed-down shows survive (i.e.: Two and a Half Men).  I could complain about how networks always cancel shows without giving them a chance, but at the end of the day, Television is a business.  And a business with long-term commitment issues.  Sure, there are crappy films put out on a weekly basis, but a few weeks later they go away (till the DVD comes out and a new audience is introduced).  After a bomb, you shake it off and move on.  One Friday it didn’t work out, next Friday is a new day.  But TV requires a different audience, not one that’s convinced to sit in a movie theater every Friday or every couple of Fridays, but one that agrees to tune in each week for twenty four weeks.  And if you watch more than one TV show, as I assume we all do, it’s tuning in daily for hours, each week.  It’s a different level of involvement.  You invite the story, the characters into your home for nine months out of the year for nineteen years (Law & Order) or for six weeks (Miss Guided). 

 

I guess what it comes down to as a TV viewer is not getting attached to any show.  I’m sure that goes against every statement that NBC, ABC, FOX, CBS and the CW want you to believe.  Even if the show is a hit, you never know when the showrunners will take a wrong turn and you’re on a crash course to hell or when a network will pull your favorite shows because ad sales are too low.  Stop blaming the networks, studios, writers, directors, and actors, and take TV into your own hands.

 

Watch TV like you should live life: “Right here, right now” (Per Mick Friday night).  Watch without long-term baggage.  Watch without fear.  Watch every episode like it may be your last – because tonight it is.  “Savor it.”

 

 

Manatee: The series finale was perfect.  If all of the episodes were this good “post strike,” maybe the series would still be on the air.  Perhaps the writers smelled the end, and they brought together the ‘League of Extraordinary Vampires’ for Friday’s episode.  And they left Mick and Beth just the way they should be – confused over their complex relationship, distraught, but eventually happy and in love.  They cast aside the fact that they are vampire and human and Mick finally said the words he’s wanted to say for years – “I love you,” and kiss.  My heart melted.  It was the perfect way to say goodbye to two characters we have gotten to know and love, and to finally see them together, makes it worth it.  That moment will be frozen in time on the small screen.  Mick and Beth do not exist past last night.  Maybe one can hope they overcome the odds and Mick becomes human, or Beth wants to be a vamp and they live happily ever after.  But that’s not the way TV works.  They will never make it past that kiss, but that’s okay.  Season one was all leading up to that moment.  Sure the writers hoped for a second season – who doesn’t at those WGA rates!  They added the scene with ADA Ben coming across a list of all LA Vampires that seemed to also be some sort of hit list.  Sure I would like to have seen a second season; see the jealousy grow between Mick and Ben, and the foreshadowed witch hunt; perhaps even the break up and the back and forth that would have resulted from Beth and Mick’s relationship.  But in the end, all I cared about was Mick and Beth finally being in love, happy, and together.  And that’s what I got.  Thank you CBS.