‘MOONLIGHTING’: LIFE AFTER DOING ‘IT’

A few weeks ago, David and Maddie, the detective hero and heroine of television’s “Moonlighting,” fulfilled the dearest wish of many of their letter-writing fans: They did “it.” The most recent episode of the show--the last of the season--featured their morning after. A fretting Maddie (played by the sleek Cybill Shepherd) tried to talk Bruce Willis’ lowbrow David into signing a contract averring that the hip-to-hip incident never happened. Instead, the two fell into another carnal embrace, apparently making it necessary for Maddie to extract a second oath of omerta from David.

Where on Earth does “Moonlighting” go from here? There seem to be only two possible directions. One is for the pair to marry and become another Nick and Nora Charles, merrily solving crimes between bouts of witty repartee. The other is for them to abide by Maddie’s wishes and pretend they never were lovers. They could then presumably resume the flirtation that was the centerpiece of the show before David and Maddie got introspective about themselves. David could resume his jesting, flattering hints of his availability, and Maddie could resume jestingly, flatteringly, pretending not to get them.

Why only two alternatives? C. S. Lewis once wrote that the man and woman who sleep together form a bond between them that can never be broken. So, although just yesterday the evangelists of the mercifully defunct sexual revolution preached that a roll in the hay could be as inconsequential as a roll of the Monopoly dice, those who went through affairs knew that there are but two ways of resolving them: marriage or breaking up. The latter is usually unpleasant, sordid or both, at best. At worst, it is excruciatingly painful. Do we want to watch David and Maddie quarrel bitterly and then disintegrate slowly before your eyes?

By its creators’ capitulating to the fan mail and maneuvering its two leading characters, who are supposed to be business partners, into bed, “Moonlighting” has already turned from a sophisticated and lighthearted combination of comedy and crime-solving into a soap opera, a “Hill Street Blues” or “Dallas” without the numerous secondary characters and their problems to leaven the exclusive, tedious focus on a single couple.

The most alarming aspect of this new turn for “Moonlighting,” however, isn’t the imminent implosion of this hitherto charming television show. It is the utter lack of romantic feeling with which David and Maddie consummated their love. If, indeed, it could be called love, for neither of the two has ever expressed any affection for each other beyond professional camaraderie. They have simply fallen into bed, overcome by animal lust--or something. And don’t say that’s just because David is a tight-lipped cynical scamp with a high machismo quotient who can’t bring himself to utter, New Man-style, the magical mush-words “I love you.”

One suspects that the “Moonlighting” sex episodes lacked genuine passion because the writers had an agenda to push. David and Maddie’s is yuppie love, where romance is out and calculation is definitely in. The stylish Maddie, in particular, is supposed to be the essence of what we are supposed to believe a thoroughly modern career woman should be: independent financially and emotionally, cool as a cucumber, utterly self-assured at all times and above all, no dizzy dame. This means she cannot surrender to passion, because that might indicate residual dizziness. The liberated female cannot need anything or anyone and above all, she cannot ever need a man. After all, when David shows up to pursue Maddie, she has just turned down the proposal of a Mr. Perfect of a Yalie astronaut. How can she turn around and give her heart to diamond-in-the-rough David, with his junior-college-level cultural IQ, his dingy apartment and his all-too-evident inability to afford blackened monkfish every night and private school for the kids?

Nowadays, it’s hard to find a television series without a message to push. Switch on “Cagney & Lacey,” “L.A. Law,” “St. Elsewhere.” Purportedly about police, lawyers and doctors, these shows’ real subject matter usually turns out to be alcoholism, date rape, condoms, sexual harassment--whatever happens to be the social problem or solution of the week.

This unrelenting earnestness takes the fun out of comedy, the grit out of police shows and the mystery out of mysteries. It has sucked all the romance out of the coupling of David and Maddie. (It’s a wonder that Maddie didn’t ask David to don a condom before going into action, as is the politically correct procedure these days.)

In earlier times--at least through the Bogart years--those who consummated their passions without benefit of clergy broke taboos, even the relatively mild, oft-breached taboo of no-sex-before-marriage. So, these lovers had to give up something, take risks, surrender themselves.

There’s no surrendering on “Moonlighting”; indeed, its very point is that the characters don’t let themselves go as they let themselves go. The paradox is that, before the Great Consummation, “Moonlighting” had something subtle and wonderful to teach about relations between the sexes: the joy of flirting. It also suggested that it’s not wise or necessary to bed down with everyone you meet who looks halfway attractive, that waiting is best.

“Moonlighting” seemed a welcome throwback to the civilized romantic comedies of the 1950s, before the taboos came tumbling down, when men and women courted if they were serious about each other, joked and bantered but stopped short of bed if they weren’t. Now, Maddie seems cheapened by giving in to a man she’s not sure she cares about, and David has been shorn of his most appealing virtue, his chivalry.

Next season’s “Moonlighting,” of course, will probably not feature its leading characters’ marriage or amnesia. Instead, the writers will probably cobble a dreary, troubled “relationship” for them, as David and Maddie prove themselves to be detached yet caring, as we are all supposed to be in these bloodless times. So sad for two larger-than-life, delightfully conceived characters who deserve much more.