Moonlight (American TV series)

For the 1985-1989 TV series, see Moonlighting (TV series).

Moonlight
Created by	Ron Koslow Trevor Munson
Starring	Alex O'Loughlin Sophia Myles Jason Dohring Shannyn Sossamon Brian J. White
Country of origin	United States
No. of seasons	1
No. of episodes	12 (list of episodes)
Production
Executive producers	Ron Koslow Trevor Munson Gerard Bocaccio Joel Silver Rod Holcomb Chip Johannessen
Running time	42 minutes (approximately)
Original release
Network	CBS
Release	September 28, 2007 – present

Moonlight is an American supernatural television drama created by Ron Koslow and Trevor Munson, who also serve as executive producers alongside Joel Silver, Gerard Bocaccio and Rod Holcomb. The show is a paranormal romance series that follows a private investigator, Mick St. John (Alex O'Loughlin), whose bride, Coraline (Shannyn Sossamon), turned him into a vampire on the couple's wedding night 55 years prior; he struggles in the present day with his love for a mortal woman, Beth Turner (Sophia Myles), and his dealings with other vampires in the city.

Produced by Warner Bros. Television and Silver Pictures, the series premiered on September 28 2007, airing on Friday nights at 9:00/8:00c on CBS, following Ghost Whisperer. CTV began airing the show in Canada in simulcast with the American broadcast. Channel Nine in Australia started airing the series on December 12 2007, but later stopped showing the series after episode 8. Living will begin airing the show in the United Kingdom on February 19 2008 .

Les Moonves, President of CBS, speaking on December 4, 2007, stated that Moonlight is likely to return for a second season (2008-2009). However, once the strike ended, CBS has announced that the show would return April 11 2008 with at least 4 new episodes; to be part of the shows first season.

Cast

Main cast

• Mick St. John (Alex O'Loughlin), a private investigator who was turned into a vampire over fifty years ago. As a private investigator, he is a shrewd planner and remarkably honorable. His wife, Coraline, sired him on their wedding night in 1952, when he was thirty. After she taught him the basics of vampire life, they came to be estranged. During their separation, he appeared to have taken up with Josef and shared quite a few of the other's hedonistic tendencies, especially regarding human women. Then in 1985 he was approached by a mother desperate to find her kidnapped daughter Beth. Mick rescued the child from the kidnapper, his ex-wife Coraline, who he then killed. He has continued to keep track of Beth over the years and they soon grow close after a string of "vampire" murders, with leaning to romance. Though he realizes that Beth means quite a bit to him, he is reluctant to continue a romantic, and at times any sort, relationship with her, knowing that his being a vampire would hinder any sort of normal life. Unlike most vampires, he is conscientious and principled, reluctant to let go of his humanity, even when keeping it only means emotional pain. As of 2007, he claims to be eighty five years old and to have fought in World War II in the Battle of the Bulge. Mick meets a photographer who works with Beth in Buzzwire who closely resembles his ex-wife, Coraline. After he discovers it really is her, and she has turned back into a human, he pleads with her to find the 'cure'. Mick and Coraline become attracted toward each other again, and Beth, who realizes who Coraline truly is takes matters into her own hands and stabs Coraline in the chest thinking she's a vampire. Afterwards, Mick and Beth come to have a strained relationship, further strained as Mick finds out about Josef's "death," but as they finally come to amends as they figure out the mysteries of Josef's past. Even as Mick forgives Beth for stabbing Coraline, he soon becomes desperate in obtaining Coraline's secret to becoming mortal, to his ex-wife's amusement.

• Beth Turner (Sophia Myles), an internet reporter, and St. John's love interest. Beth was rescued by Mick 22 years ago (Los Angeles 1985) after being kidnapped by his ex-wife Coraline. Inquisitive and intelligent, she is a fairly successful reporter and steadily dating an attorney. In the first episode, she meets Mick over a dead body and is curiously drawn to him, only to find out that he is a vampire. Though he occasionally has to bail her out of trouble, she soon becomes invaluable to him as backup and emotional support, going as far as to feed him her blood to help him regain his strength. This intimacy starts to form a rift between Beth and her long-term boyfriend, a district attorney. The longer she knows Mick, the more she starts to remember about the fateful night when she was a child and Mick rescued her, until she finally realizes that he was the one who saved her. When Beth gets jealous toward a photographer and Mick working together on a case, she investigates the photographer's background. She finds out she's actually Mick's wife, Coraline. She seeks out Coraline's old party house to find the room she was held in long ago when Coraline kidnapped her as a child. Along with that she finds pictures proving Coraline has been stalking Mick and her for the last few weeks. After finding the room she snaps off part of one of the chairs and seeks out Coraline to exact her revenge, not realizing that somehow Coraline has become human. Aghast at what she had done, she attempts to make amends with Mick and eventually does so while finding about Josef's past.

• Josef Kostan (Jason Dohring), a centuries old vampire (he was four years old in 1603 as mentioned in the episode The Ringer, therefore making him 408 years old), and St. John's mentor and perhaps the closest he has to a friend. Not much is known about his past and he doesn't reveal anything of it unless prompted. He claims to have gone insane when first turned into a vampire in Dr. Feelgood, was chased by a mob in There's No Such Thing as Vampires, and has known Coraline for roughly a hundred years before she met Mick. A hedonist to the utmost, he is a shrewd businessman who doesn't stint himself in luxuries, from an expensive house to the company of numerous beautiful women who are more than happy to sate his desire for blood. Cynical and wry, he humors what he calls Mick's sentimentality regarding humans, from aiding them to only drinking dead or donated blood. However, he rebukes Mick rather harshly from time to time, especially concerning Mick's growing affection for Beth. Aside from his affairs with mortal women, he dallies with vampires, most notably Lola, the oldest vampire he personally ever met, though these liaisons never seem to end well. In Sleeping Beauty, a 93 year old man sends a mercenary to kill Josef, on the grounds that Josef killed his daughter, Sarah, 50 years ago. Mick and Beth find out that Josef was in love with Sarah, and tried to turn her into a vampire but something went wrong in the process, resulting in leaving her comatose for fifty years. Curiously, she hasn't aged.

• Coraline (Shannyn Sossamon), St. John's ex-wife and sire. A courtesan in early 18th century France, she is approximately 300 years old. She turned Mick into a vampire on their honeymoon and eventually became estranged. She was presumed dead for 22 years after Mick rescued Beth and set the building on fire, trapping Coraline within. Cool, collected and sophisticated, Coraline never lacked male attention, favoring musicians, which led to a fateful encounter with Mick and his band in the 1950's at a garden party. Despite driving Mick nearly insane with obsession, she grew to love him or perhaps obsess about him, leading to his fateful turning on their wedding night. She introduced Mick to Josef, to both men's profound irritation. In the episode entitled "The Ringer", Mick meets a human photographer named Morgan. Both Mick and Josef see Coraline's mannerisms and style in Morgan, yet she is human, not a vampire. Mick tried to force her to reveal herself, looking for the fleur de lis tattoo that his former wife had on her right shoulder, but Morgan's shoulder was bare. The last scene of the episode shows Morgan wiping makeup from her shoulder, revealing the tattoo. Morgan herself shortly later confirmed she is Coraline and comes to taunt Mick with the hope of a cure for vampirism. In the episode fleur de lis, the tattoo is shown as being a brand. It is later shown that Coraline is not really cured of vampirism, but had somehow managed to suppress it. After being stabbed in the chest with a piece of wood by a furious Beth, Coraline is taken to the hospital where her vampiric traits start to exhibit themselves as her condition worsens. When her heart stops and the doctors run in to help her bed is empty. In the next episode, Coraline turns up again, and gives Mick the cure, which he finds out is from a royal bloodline of Louis XVI, which she is a part of as it turns out.

Supporting cast

• Jacob Vargas as Guillermo, a morgue worker who steals blood from dead bodies for himself and other vampires, informs Mick when something is wrong in the vampire world.
• Brian J. White as Lieutenant Carl Davis, one of Turner's contacts and a friend to Mick.
• Jordan Belfi as Josh Lindsey, Beth's boyfriend who works in the DA's office (now deceased)
• Kevin Weisman as Steve Balfour, friend of Beth and co-worker at BuzzWire

Production history

Conception

Trevor Munson originally conceived the character of "Mick Angel" in 2004 and spent the better part of two and a half years writing a novel around this character. The story was also adapted into a feature film script, and Bruce Willis was named as a possibility for the lead. The script later fell into the hands of Nina Tassler at CBS, who paired Munson with Ron Koslow to turn his script into a television series. The show, originally titled "Twilight", had its pilot written by Trevor Munson and the creator of Beauty and the Beast, Ron Koslow, which was initially commissioned as a presentation lasting from 14 to 20 minutes by Warner Bros. Television in January 2007. Joel Silver and Gerard Bocaccio also came on board to executive produce the project under the formers production banner, Silver Pictures, in the same month. Rod Holcomb directed the presentation. The project was renamed "Moonlight" when CBS gave it an early pick-up and a thirteen-episode order on May 14, 2007 prior to the 2007 Upfronts.

Cast and crew changes

David Greenwalt, creator of Miracles and co-creator of Angel, joined the staff in May 2007 as showrunner and it was announced that a full-length pilot would be shot as the show changed creatively.

The cast underwent a major upheaval as all of the original actors save for the male lead role of Mick St. John were re-cast in June 2007. Shannon Lucio, Rade Sherbedgia and Amber Valletta were originally cast in the roles of Beth Turner, Josef Kostan and Coraline respectively before Sophia Myles, Jason Dohring and Shannyn Sossamon replaced them as a proper pilot for television audiences was re-shot and creative control of the show changed hands.

Greenwalt later left the show in July 2007 citing "personal, health reasons" for his departure. Chip Johannessen took over showrunner duties in August 2007.

Marketing

The show was featured on July 27, 2007 at Comic-Con International in San Diego with executive producer Joel Silver in attendance to promote the show.

In the United States, the commercial trailers on CBS feature the song "Taking Chances" by Céline Dion.

Awards and Nominations

2008

• People's Choice Award - won "Favorite New TV Drama"

Reception

The original short pilot presentation (not the aired version) was panned by The Futon Critic, who gave this short pilot a scathing review, rating it only one star out of four, and also suggested that another CBS pilot, Babylon Fields, deserved to be picked up over Moonlight. The review further hoped that the pilot would be reshot, which it was after the cast and crew changes noted above.

Episodes

Main article: List of Moonlight episodes

Number	Episode Title	Premiere	U.S. Ratings (Live + Same Day)
1	"No Such Thing as Vampires"	September 28, 2007	8.54 Million
2	"Out of the Past"	October 5, 2007	8.05 Million
3	"Dr. Feelgood"	October 12, 2007	7.10 Million
4	"Fever"	October 19, 2007	7.67 Million
5	"Arrested Development"	October 26, 2007	8.39 Million
6	"B.C."	November 2, 2007	7.57 million
7	"The Ringer"	November 9, 2007	7.96 million
8	"12:04 AM"	November 16, 2007	8.19 million
9	"Fleur de Lis"	November 23, 2007	7.33 million
10	"Sleeping Beauty"	December 14, 2007	7.62 million
11	"Love Lasts Forever"	January 11, 2008	8.38 million
12	"The Mortal Cure"	January 18, 2008	8.35 million
13	Title Unknown	April 11, 2008	Unaired
14	Title Unknown	April 18, 2008	Unaired
15	Title Unknown	April 25, 2008	Unaired
16	Title Unknown	May, 2008	Unaired

See also

• Angel
• Blood Ties
• Dark Shadows
• Forever Knight
• Kindred: The Embraced

External links

• Official CBS site
• Official CTV site
• Official Channal 9 (Australia) site