It's a romance, it's a detective show, it's practically unknown, and it will quite probably never be available to buy apart from on legally dubious bootleg DVD. It's also quietly wonderful, laced with laid back Latino vibes and retro undertones, and features some of the nicest quirky dialogue in my television experience. Is it a nostalgia love? Perhaps, but not a baseless love, as it's still a very interesting and cool jazz-tinged show.
Let's set the scene for this frothy fun detective show a little. 'Moon Over Miami' ran for thirteen episodes in 1993, the last three of which went unaired on the initial run, depriving the world of the incredibly well done rushed finale only seen in reruns and overseas. Set in the Walter Tatum Detective Agency of Miami, the first episode details how detective Walter and his operatives Tito and Billie track down the missing Gwen Cross, who has jumped off a boat before her wedding after watching 'It Happened One Night', and then the rest of the series is essentially about her integrating into the team over numerous noir-ish cases before finally winning over the cynical and reluctant Walter at the end. How many television shows use the name Walter anymore, anyway? Supporting leads Billie and Tito get together too, and the cases vary all over the genre map, featuring latino soap operas, industrial espionage, eccentric geniuses wandering the streets, Elliot Gould, the Maltese Falcon itself, the traditional 90s 'Minding the baby' story, and a decades gone missing jazz pianist.
The question to pose when talking about 'Moon Over Miami' is whether it's actually any good or just one of those things that only I like, and treated by the rest of the world as below mention. Being so out of step with the world at large can be troubling if you actually care about relative appreciation, and if you haven't accepted that the world is often very, very wrong and biased toward the least gentle of pursuits. The cast is interesting, headlining as it does with the ever reliable and underrated Billy Campbell as detective Walter Tatum and the fascinating Ally Walker as the goofy Guinevere 'Gwen' Cross, runaway daughter of wealthy society. Agustin Rodriguez and Marlo Marron complete the regulars, with the the guest star supreme J.C. Quinn adding grizzled recurring support as police detective Barnes. Barnes is interesting, evolving as he does from a grump with a plastic cigarette to a reluctant friend over a handful of appearances, apparently more by the power of Gwen than anything else. Yes, the power of Gwen... She was a lovely character, a rare example of a genuinely funnily written female role in a show mixed in with lovely casting. An early crush, easily confessed.
Interestingly, 'Moon Over Miami' was a perverter of clichés long before the trend caught on, making it a trailblazer of sorts. Dozens of tropes get flung into the spinning wheel of jokes, many of them never to be seen again. Mysterious couriers collapsing at the door, showdowns between inept spies, averted infidelities by clients galore, and of course the Falcon itself. The Falcon episode 'In A Safe Place' is fascinating, a little window into the little series that could, as is 'If You Only Knew' on the subject of stolen jazz compositions and Walter's backstory. All that and the choice to never indulge in 'will they or won't they' sustained romantic tension marks it out as a fascinating deviation from the norm.
Maybe it will never be anything more than an oddball of a curio from a time long gone, and maybe it will never appear on DVD, but it would be nice if it could. The finale alone is a fantastically fitting happy resolution, albeit bittersweet as it comes so early, and that final lowering of Walter's presumably battle earned romantic cynicism is tear-inducing as only the best of romantic nonsense can be. Yes, yes, man crying, get over it. It's difficult to sell light and frothy television that peddles perverted clichés gleefully, and with a heart of gold, so let's stop and move on with the day.
O.
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