dudes: let's write stuff abt MIAMI VICE, the TV show

home invaders from season one is one of my all time favourites.

There's a great moment when Castillo pulls some fancy jujitsu sleep pinch on a crook with the line "Better yet, GOOD NIGHT!"

great ep where crockett is walking all alone in new york city and phil collins is all "take me home" and then tubbs come running after him in the airport after just having slept with pam grier

I used to love how the USA Today 'Life' section on Fridays would have what songs were going to be on the show that night. Even a Smiths song made it on an episode!

i guess at the time that was a totally new and refreshing stunt?

worst episode: "made for each other"

omg pimp concierge miles davis with a baseball bat

After wasting time watching the first season of what was in essence an average cop show with wisecracking has-beens, I'm watching the second season of "Miami Vice" -- what a difference. Arty, "contemplative," and understated. Fantastic use of music; I finished an episode (directed by that great stone face Edward James Olmos) in which Bryan Ferry's "Boys and Girls" was weaved with real skill around the opening scenes. Still kitsch though. I can see how it made the shows around it ("Dallas"!) look dowdy.

Those of you old enough to know: your experiences? I wasn't allowed to watch the show, but its presence was omnipresent in 1985 and 1986. A sixth grade dance in spring '86 existed as a showcase for rented powder-blue suits, espadrilles, silk shirts, and gelled peach fuzz. Our Christmas party in '85 was all about the TV soundtrack, still the biggest selling in music history.

oh man i used to come home from the activity center and watch this usually while eating some ice cream and then channel surf while the news was on then johnny carson, dave letterman and FRIDAY NIGHT VIDEOS! good times

I catch bits of reruns on cable occasionally - this show cracks me up. the tortured posing! the fluorescent lights! the insane 80s set designs!

I watched it a bit as a kid when it originally aired, I think most of it went over my head

Ah, Michael Mann.

the Phil Collins episode is awful: what a smug asshole.

hey man, it's just another day in paradise

i thought phil collins was cast very appropriately

also i don't know which ep it is but there's one where crocket has an aligator for a pet and tosses him a steak as he's all hungover

^^^honestly the "crockett lives on a boat and owns an alligator" is like the sum total of my childhood memories of this show

and it's the reason i know what espadrilles are as well as pastel colors
for some reason i always think of miami vice when i hear the word pastel

Espadrilles make your bare feet stink something awful.

I know.

hey- we were watching TV in Berlin tonight and we see something listed as "Miami Vice" which totally looks the part- bad 80s clothes, everyone with weird poofy hair, jackets with sleeves folded up to their elbows, muscle Ts, cop show about drugs n stuff, y'know- but . . .

no Crockett and no Tubbs-

instead the show revolved around some cute and sorta plastic-y and porn-looking male actors who were really nondescript

but the credits said "A Michael Mann Production" and stuff and it listed Jan Hammer: Music etc.

so we are confused- were there ever episodes of "Miami Vice" that just straight up didn't have Don Johnson in them at all? Are we high or something? and yeah we've looked around online already but no dice. it's like we fell into an alternate TV universe (exciting and scary)

if it helps jog yr memory- in the episode we watched a guy is high on drugs and hallucinates and the hallucinations are rendered in a pastel-y video effect similar to that used in the a-Ha "Take on Me" video- and he is almost killed by a semi that nearly rolls over him but the boring good guys who aren't Crockett and Tubbs but who are wearing retarded white pants tucked into black buckle boots with bandanas on their heads save him from a psychedelic death on the freeway.

Anybody? Anybody? Help us!

No idea about that, but P.M. Thomas was and is my fashion hero.

http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1107/1352507044_0b622409de.jpg?v=0

not sure about that, crockett was always the more stylish one. especially in the later seasons when the costume people tried to experiment with new styles:

http://www.miamiviceonline.com/screenshots/miracle02.jpg

Yuck!

the miami vice "look" is still very fresh though imo -- ray-bans and carreras are still in, and I wouldn't be too surprised to see the same pastel henleys/linen slacks sold at american apparel or something

Yeah, somewhere I read that the per-show budget was cut drastically before the end. From Armani to, like, Generra.

http://www.starringthecomputer.com/snapshots/miami_vice_s5e3_amiga2000_1.jpg

PMT looks so unhappy in that leopard-pattern jacket.

Humiliated--that might be the right word.

The show peaked quickly: from '85 to 1986 really. At a sixth grade dance, every guy wore turquoise or salmon pink pseudo Armani jackets and sockless espadrilles (David Rieff's excellent book on Miami mentions how thoroughly the look had permeated the city, and how officials exploited it). But I don't remember anyone talking about the show or dressing like Crockett or Tubbs from '86 onwards.

man ed o'neil just went ham on some porno guys

What was the episode where an arms dealer demonstrated his wares on CROCKETT'S CAR? This sequence, and Crockett's reaction, are the only parts of MV I remember watching. Also, I suspect this is the highlight of the series--am I correct?

That was Jeff Fahey in When Irish Eyes Are Smiling (season three).

I watched the entire series on DVD over the course of two months last year. It is fantastic almost throughout.

the first season of this has some hints of how good it gets later but there's a lot of bad jokes and bad fake accents and it doesn't look nearly as good as it did later. just watched an episode where crockett and tubbs infiltrate a boat race to try and get at a drug shipment, with crockett getting into the race by hustling the drug dealer at a pool game. at least three minutes of the last half of the episode are devoted to a shirtless tubbs making out awkwardly in bed with the dealer's mistress. great show!

I like how the writers decided Crockett dealing with this estranged family or w/e wasn't going anywhere and dropped that plot sideline right at the start

Tubbs doll:

http://www.figurerealm.com/Galleries/miamivice/RicardoTubbs-GreenSuit.jpg

lol love the OP's enthusiasm

s1e1 surprisingly moving?

http://i.imgur.com/i0DGacS.jpg
You got a leak your department the size of the east rivuh

http://i.imgur.com/Y0sRTX4.jpg
Alright that's it. Any questions?
Yeah, I gotta question. You roll some fruit for that shirt or what?

http://imgur.com/3zn8p4P.jpg
You were my partner...thanksgiving...birthdays

http://imgur.com/LCseL5Q.jpg
in the air

ok gotta rewatch that

I just remember the subplot of Sonny's family (divorce?) that they backgrounded and how Olmos doesn't appear much until later

olmos wasn't their original captain so that's why he didn't show up until episode 4 or whenever.

yeah Castillo is the original captain until he gets murdered and they have that whole epic revenge episode

err....not castillo, I mean Rodriguez

Golden Triangle 2 parter the highlight of season 1, despite it's kind of cop-out ending. I always thought if they were going to make a sequel to the Mann movie, they could have cribbed it from that

Is it worth it watching the whole season? Or should I just skip to those episodes? Cause I watched a bit of ep 2 and it seemed kind of schlocky

it takes a lil bit to get going, I started enjoying it by episode 3. once they start having two-parters and the stakes get epic it gets more fun. The Ed O'Neill episode is weird, it feels like it belongs later in the season.

the two I noted have a notably darker tone than the rest of the season.

Golden Triangle is Olmo's star turn
Also who knew Josie Packard is in this? : )

I have never seen MV, but just learned that one of them had a pet alligator and want to give it a try. Studio could have added a gator or two to the marketing of this show if they had wanted to appeal to folks like me.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=awzOq_XKA_o

Tim Capello!

Cappello

I’m just starting with it but Tokyo Vice seems decent so far.

It’s interesting to me that there’s basically a whole subgenre of police procedurals indebted to The Wire. (Maybe Tokyo Vice will resolve the apparent dysfunction easily idk.) But Narcos Mexico was another one that really dug into the dysfunction.

Sorry, thread derail.

Just watched the Pilot for the first time since 1984. I loved this show so much as a 12 yo and thought Sonny Crocket was the coolest thing ever.

What a great show! Has any other TV show, let alone a network TV show, edited scenes with music so completely? The version of "All Night Long" by the latin band in the scene in the club when Tubbs meets Calderon is perfect. Philip Michael Thomas really great job with the contained rage in that scene. In fact, he's as much if not more of the star of the episode as Crocket.

er, as Johnson.

I remember Walt ordering a Fat Tire on Breaking Bad once and I kind of double-taked, as that was one of the first times I'd heard someone order a specific beer on a show.

https://i.imgur.com/c1WWmvU.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/uIM3Rd0.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/vMGjWAD.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/ddiENWN.jpg

Definitely the most WTF sequence of this show

^ Looking forward to that episode.

Btw I just remembered that in the s2 episode “Florence Italy” which centers around a street race in Miami, the main driver played by Danny Sullivan is sponsored by Löwenbräu - the real one, not a fake version.

https://i.imgur.com/0xeBhTV.jpg

Late night at the office watching telly with the bros

https://i.imgur.com/7FombpH.jpg

The color coordination is top tier

https://i.imgur.com/LGQaTt0.jpg

In the wake of Sheena Easton’s assassination, when Burnett is drowning himself in whiskey in the cabin of his boat, and Cooper comes to visit, and tells him that she had been pregnant, the visuals take on this unusual tint. Powerful

https://i.imgur.com/tGjFV4Q.jpg

As I approached the end of the penultimate season of my life, I wondered: was it all…just a dream?

Sonny is a suit?

Whoops, *in* a suit?

the suit represents birth

in that he's going to get somebody pregnant

If I was a witness being hunted by a cartel, and guarded by Zito and Switek, I'd probably just take my chances on the street

lol otm

https://i.imgur.com/f8xyQbd.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/HTXxvo6.jpg

Boss…your face

man he was Gucci Mane before Gucci Mane

https://i.imgur.com/rZ91EgF.jpg

“Oh Rico, I’d love to get lunch, but I have an audition to be an extra in a Milli Vanilli video.”

https://i.imgur.com/GgMTLHU.jpg

the last ride

Good lord

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F_O2Lw0wuSA

lol, what possessed you to revive this thread at this particular time?! I literally just started watching it for the first time ever this weekend. Weird! Anyway, I do have thoughts, as it's both way cooler and way cheesier than I expected, which is a combo I vibe with hard. But for now

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XqWTjCyLTU4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tb9e8OcC1jA

The Rico Tubbs style is finally back:
https://x.com/boymolish/status/1780732599197118845

I've only very glancingly scanned the thread in an effort to avoid spoilers, but is it possible that there hasn't been any discussion about the season three episode where Sonny goes full Will Graham and nearly loses his own mind while trying to get inside the head of a psychopath? Because goddamn was that episode ever excellent and maybe the craziest pre-Twin Peaks shit I've seen on broadcast television.

I remember that one, thought it was pretty silly and overdone...like Crockett really overplays it. Nice change up from the usual plots though

“I found out that Burnett and Crock-ett…are the same guy”

"It's over, Crockett. She's gone."

I have a maddening childhood memory of Miami Vice. I remember sitting down to watch this hip new show, and the theme music felt wrong. There was something off about it. And apparently I wasn't losing my mind, because the theme music from the first few episodes was mixed wrong:
https://miamivice.fandom.com/wiki/Miami_Vice_Theme

It didn't have the main melody, so it was just percussion and dugga-dugga-dug synthesisers.

I've always wondered if Vice was an influence on the 1990s wave of darker and edgier comic books, or if it was influenced by them, or by a common ancestor. Apart from the clothes and cars the other thing that made the show distinctive was the downbeat tone - Crockett's girl always ended up being shot in his arms by the villain, or the CIA swooped in and gave the chief villain immunity. It was a cartoonish attempt to emulate mature drama. And it was coincident with Batman: The Dark Knight Returns.

But on the other hand The Equalizer and even Magnum PI were downbeat at times, and Hill Street Blues predated them. The whole downbeat dark and edgy thing is something that young people seem to ignore about the 1980s. There's a perception that the 1970s was a massive bummer, but the 1980s was cocaine-fuelled happiness and big muscly men shooting things up. But it wasn't like that. The CIA were always the bad guys and there was always a corporate conspiracy. Even something like Robocop, which is ultra-80s, has a socialist undercurrent. Actual pure stereotypical 1980s media, like Cobra, is surprisingly rare.

Do I have anything else to say about Miami Vice? I have the impression that it was one of the things that killed off contemporary Doctor Who. Because until that point the production values of US television shows wasn't vastly superior to British TV. If you compare e.g. Jon Pertwee-era Who to Wonder Woman or Logan's Run the show doesn't look so bad. Even The A-Team didn't look particularly cinematic, and Airwolf and Battlestar Galactica had masses of stock footage.

Whereas Vice was convincingly, obviously superior on a technical level to anything the BBC could mount - especially on a regular basis, instead of just a one-off - and it just made our television look pathetic. And British commentators couldn't even dismiss it was trashy violent nonsense, because the writing was occasionally good. On a visual, cinematic level British TV didn't really catch up until the Matt Smith era in the mid-2010s.

Matt Zoller Seitz on the 40th anniversary of the pilot. Great and very informative read.

https://www.vulture.com/article/why-was-the-miami-vice-pilot-so-good.html

It really is amazing, as claimed in that piece, that the production of Vice literally changed the color scheme of Miami. I definitely remember a preponderance of tan in the early '80s, but it's possible that pastels had persisted in suburban areas of South Florida and so it didn't seem, in real time, like such an abrupt switchover when Miami reclaimed its pastels.

Architecture & Miami Vice: https://www.ft.com/content/8a9101a5-67ec-41ad-8c90-29b2ba852d50