Moonlight is officially cancelled….

Moonlight was cancelled yesterday by CBS for not holding on to enough viewers from its lead-in, Ghost Whisperer.  I will admit that the acting and dialogue was, at times, stale, but that was part of the fun.  It was an entertaining show, and I just loved that everyone got their news from BuzzWire online.  I almost felt like the show took place in the future!  I wonder what happened in the last few weeks to cause CBS to change their minds about renewing for a second season.  I know that ratings have been down since its return from the writer’s strike, but ratings have been down for all hour-long dramas across all networks.  What’s worse is that we probably won’t get any closure.  The “season finale” airs this Friday, and I doubt the producers, cast, etc will have time to wrap it up before then.  The best thing we can hope for is for the show’s producers to reveal plans for Mick and Beth in Season 2 and beyond. 

Moonlight in danger???

I’m not sure what to make of this post from WWK.  For months now, Moonlight’s chances of returning for a second season looked beyond favorable.  It was a done deal until CBS announced 6 news shows (4 hour-long dramas and 2 half-hour sitcoms) for its 2008-2009 schedule.  I don’t really understand why that means there is no room for Moonlight on the schedule.  Why not keep it on Fridays at 9PM (where it is faring well despite being on Friday).  Moonlight had more than enough to sink Women’s Murder Club (starring a very popular Angie Harmon) on ABC, so it has proven itself well.  And honestly, I like Simon Baker, but how many failed shows do we need to give the guy before someone/ANYONE realizes that he’s not going to translate to television ratings success. 

Moonlight: Donate blood for a good cause, and save the show!

We want your blood.

EW.com is reporting that Moonlight fans have partnered with the Red Cross to do a blood drive to promote the show and secure a second season.  For more information, see these sites:

Reuters Article

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Moonlight: Lessons on The Reign of Terror

The last new episode of Moonlight raised some very interesting questions and some eyebrows (well mine, anyway).  We’ll get to the raised eyebrows first.  It was insanely bold, I think, that Moonlight decided to rewrite history.  They went all the way back to The Reign of Terror in 18th century France.  Everything we thought we knew about the Reign of Terror is actually a lie.  People weren’t being executed for going against the government, not at all.  They were being executed because they were suspected of being vampires!  Sounds a little bit like the Salem witch trials if you ask me, but it was interesting, nevertheless, learning that Coraline comes from a noble bloodline. 

Speaking of Coraline and her noble bloodline, it turns out that her family has a serum that masks the effects of vampirism, temporarily.  It was used to escape being executed way back during the reign of terror.  Coraline has had a change of heart and wants to be a human again so she can know real love (ee’re all supposed to shed a tear now) and has stolen the serum from her powerful brother.  She was experimenting to make the serum reverse the effects of vampirism permamently.  In order to make amends with Mick, she gave him a bit of the serum and let him experience being human for a little while.  It was bittersweet seeing Mick feel real, physical pain and eat to his heart’s content.  You just wonder how long the serum will last and if he’ll ever be human again after that.  I thought the first thing he would do is show up on Beth’s doorstep, but it makes sense that he’d want to eat and sleep, something he hasn’t done in over 50 years. 

Sadly, we are left with nothing but questions and no real expectation of when we will receive answers.  With the strike still going strong and this being the last episode, we could be waiting for 50 years!   How long is Mick going to be human?  Is Coraline’s weird black-eyed brother going to kill her?  Is Mick going to take up his own research with the blood he took from himself? 

Reasons to “Moonlight”

 

I am so excited that Moonlight is so popular and has its own little cult following!  Kristin from E! posted on her blog today about 3 good reasons to watch Moonlight.  It’s true that the show is a bit hokey at times, but for some reason it manages to entertain me every time I watch.  Give it a chance!  There’s a reason that TV Guide viewers voted Mick and Beth the hottest TV couple!

Moonlight isn’t a comedy, is it?

Something about Moonlight really amuses me.  It might be the somewhat poorly written dialogue, the far-fetched scenarios, or the fact that the vampires drink their blood out of wine glasses.  At the end of the October 19th episode, when Beth offers her blood to Mick in order to save his life, something Mick said cracked me up.  His response, “NO!!  NOT LIKE THIS!!” was strange to me.  No, not like this?  To me, that implies that he thinks feeding on Beth would be more appropriate at a different time or perhaps a different time and location.  Shouldn’t the response have been, “No!!  I won’t feed on you!!”?  I thought Mick wanted to protect Beth, not drink her blood for lunch which is what his exclamation of “NO!! NOT LIKE THIS,” implies. 

Did anyone else notice this?  More importantly, does anyone else watch this show?  If you do, would you admit to it? 

just another vampire show?

As you all know, Moonlight premiered last week.  Wait, you didn’t know that?  Oh, you’ve never heard of the show?  To refresh everyone’s memory, Moonlight follows a vampire (a good one, who only drinks pre-packaged blood from the morgue) named Mick St. John (I absolutely despise that name) who happens to be a private investigator.  The first episode centered around the murder of a Hearst College student (I was reading other blogs and reviews, and the general consensus is that this is a nod to Veronica Mars).  The murder victim has what appear to be teeth marks in her neck.  Beth, (played by Sophia Myles, who looks like Kate Winslet’s younger sister) a reporter for some tabloid trash “news” magazine, is on the scene taking pictures with her cool camera phone.   (By the way, her cameraman was played by Kevin Weisman!!  It was nice to see Marshall Flinkman again!)  Mick also shows up on the scene, and he knows Beth immediately, though not as the reporter but as the girl he rescued about 10-15 years earlier.  In a series of flashbacks, we learn that Mick’s ex-wife, Coraline (played by Shannyn Sossamon) kidnapped Beth as a child and was going to turn her into a vampire so they could be one happy vampire family.  Mick, the reformed and virtuous vampire that he is, wants nothing to do with killing an innocent child.  After a brutal fight with Coraline, he flees with Beth and sets fire to the building, leaving Coraline to die.  Of course we all know that Coraline isn’t dead just like we knew that when Buffy left the church in flames that Drusilla and Spike weren’t really dead.  (I couldn’t resist drawing a parallel to, perhaps, the vampire show that is foremost in everyone’s minds). 

Meanwhile, Beth can’t help but feel that she has met Mick before.  She brushes it off by accepting that he “has one of those faces” that seem so familiar.  They agree to work together to solve the case.  The top suspect is the murder victim’s professor (played by Rudolf Martin, who coincidentally played Dracula on BTVS) who claims to be a vampire.  He claims that being a vampire just has something to do with channeling energy, but it’s a load of crap.  His lectures appeal to the college’s “goth” community, and they form some secret, underground club that amounts to nothing more than a bunch of wannabe vampires.  Oddly enough, this also reminded me of an episode in Season 1 of Buffy, in which a group of mortals long to be vampires and form a ridiculous club.  The resolution of the show is a bit vague, and I am still not quite sure what happened.  As far as I know, the girl was murdered by a loyal follower of the professor who was trying to protect his integrity?  As I said, it’s vague and makes very little sense.  However, since I am a sucker (no pun intended) for vampire shows, I’ll probably continue to keep up with Moonlight in some capacity. 

I feel the need to address negative comments associated with Alex O’Loughlin who plays Mick St. John on imdb.com.  There are an inordinate number of angry posts saying that Alex O’Loughlin is not “hot enough” to play a vampire and that Jason Dohring should have the lead role.  If you notice, I didn’t mention Jason Dohring or the character he plays, Josef at all.  Josef had no major impact on the show, it’s plot, or the outcome.  Also, as I mentioned to a friend, it was like watching Logan from Veronica Mars as a vampire.  I like Jason Dohring, but I am not sure he really has much range.  Maybe Jason just hasn’t been given much to work with.  Someone could certainly argue that, so we’ll have to wait and see if he steals the show in this series as he did in VM. 

Lastly, a note to CBS:  Try to find a better song for the promotional clips.  Celine Dion didn’t do a whole hell of a lot for Chrysler’s sales, if I am not mistaken.