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‘Moonbeam City’ spoofs ‘Miami Vice’ with every 80s cliché under the neon pink moon
09.14.2015
12:48 pm
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It’s much easier to write about something you really, really love—or conversely really, really hate—than something you feel lukewarm about. Passion in one direction or the other is generally speaking, a necessary component of blogging: “Here’s this thing I feel enthusiastic about” (or the flipside of that). And this is why I’ve been sitting in front of my keyboard all morning trying to think of something to write about the new Comedy Central series, Moonbeam City, which I watched last night. I wanted to like it. I expected that I would. Conceptually it’s pretty neat—a neon-hued pisstake of Miami Vice rendered very much in the style of artist Patrick Nagel with a gloriously synthed-out soundtrack partaking in every 80s musical trope—but ultimately Moonbeam City just left me pretty cold.

Moonbeam City‘s pilot episode “Mall Hath No Mercy” (which you can watch now in advance of its Wednesday night TV debut on the Comedy Central website) introduces us to “Dazzle Novak,” an idiotic cop in the “Sonny” Crockett mold. He’s an incompetent, vain, skirt-chasing, narcissistic fashion plate who can’t shoot straight, but he’s the “#1 Cop” in Moonbeam City, or at least that what his coffee mug reads. He’s an undercover cop who wrecks havoc on the pink fluorescent Art Deco metropolis he loves, with car chases and macho catch phrases like “I hope your brain is hungry—it’s having bullets for dinner.”
 

“Captain Pizzaz Miller” voiced by Elizabeth Banks
 
There’s much to recommend in Moonbeam City—the animation, done by Los Angeles studio Titmouse (Superjail!, Metalocalypse, Black Dynamite) is pure eye candy—truly the best of the best—and the music, by Night Club, is pitch perfect, too. There’s the voice-over work of Rob Lowe, Elizabeth Banks, Kara Mara and Will Forte. The problem is that it looks and sounds better than it is written.

Clearly Comedy Central have higher hopes for Moonbeam City than I do, scheduling its premiere after South Park‘s 19th season premiere. Sadly Moonbeam City seems, to me, to be a one trick pony. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a gorgeous product, but once you get over the art direction and audio-visual flash, the writing is just kind of “blah” and pedestrian. Honestly, I’m kinda on the fence about watching a second episode. I don’t really see where they could take it. But don’t take my word for it, you can watch the Moonbeam City pilot here.
 

Posted by Richard Metzger
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09.14.2015
12:48 pm
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