Miami Vice (TV Series 1984–1990) - IMDb IMDb There was an error trying to load your rating for this title. Some parts of this page won't work property. Please reload or try later. X Beta I'm Watching This! Keep track of everything you watch; tell your friends. Error Resplendent with authentic 1980's music, fashion and vibe, "Miami Vice" follows two undercover detectives and their extended team through the mean streets of Miami. Creators: Crockett finds out first hand about Charlie Basset as a violent drug runner with an enticing wife that Sonny just can't get out of his mind. 9.3 Crockett and Tubbs stake out a drug dealer, an investigation that is being helped along by an ex-cop that seems to know a bit too much about the case. 9.1 The team moves to protect Crockett and his family from an assassin, hired by Calderone to re-empty the void he left behind. 8.9 What Makes the Golden Globe Awards So Entertaining? IMDb Special Correspondent Dave Karger breaks down why the Golden Globes are so much more entertaining than other award shows.

Don't miss our live coverage of the Golden Globes beginning at 4 p.m. PST on Jan. 8 in our Golden Globes section. Guide to the Globes Related News a list of 22 titles created 18 Dec 2010 a list of 35 titles created 28 Feb 2012 a list of 24 titles created 31 May 2013 a list of 48 titles created 10 Mar 2014 a list of 42 titles created 23 Sep 2014 Search for " Miami Vice " on Amazon.com Connect with IMDb Title: Miami Vice (1984–1990) 7.5/10 Want to share IMDb's rating on your own site? Use the HTML below. You must be a registered user to use the IMDb rating plugin. Won 2 Golden Globes. Another 10 wins & 29 nominations. See more awards » Videos The adventures of a Hawaii based private investigator. Stars: Tom Selleck, John Hillerman, Roger E. Mosley The quirky cases of a former model and a smart aleck detective who manage a private detective agency.

Stars: Cybill Shepherd, Bruce Willis, Allyce Beasley Four Vietnam vets, framed for a crime they didn't commit, help the innocent while on the run from the military. Stars: George Peppard, Mr. T, Dwight Schultz A lone crimefighter battles the forces of evil with the help of an indestructible and artificially intelligent supercar. Stars: David Hasselhoff, Edward Mulhare, Richard Basehart As part of a deal with an intelligence agency to look for his missing brother, a renegade pilot goes on missions with an advanced battle helicopter. Stars: Jan-Michael Vincent, Alex Cord, Ernest Borgnine The adventures of the fast-drivin', rubber-burnin' Duke boys of Hazzard County. Stars: Tom Wopat, John Schneider, Catherine Bach The adventures of a secret agent armed with almost infinite scientific resourcefulness. Stars: Richard Dean Anderson, Dana Elcar, Bruce McGill The adventures of three sexy female private eyes. Stars: Kate Jackson, Farrah Fawcett, Jaclyn Smith Based on the 1980s TV action/drama, this update focuses on vice detectives Crockett and Tubbs as their respective personal and professional lives become dangerously intertwined.

Director: Michael Mann After a crippled test pilot is rebuilt with nuclear powered limbs and implants, he serves as a unique intelligence agent. Stars: Lee Majors, Richard Anderson, Martin E. Brooks The adventures of two California Highway Patrol motorcycle officers. Stars: Erik Estrada, Larry Wilcox, Robert Pine A scientist who has created a super helicopter has defected to Libya and taken the machine with him. A secretive government agency hires an ex-Vietnam War pilot to go to Libya, steal the chopper and bring it back. Director: Donald P. Bellisario Edit Storyline Stubble-faced detective Crockett lived in a sailboat guarded by his alligator Elvis. His partner Tubbs was a black New York cop looking for his brother's killer. Together they took on the Florida drug world. The show influenced men's fashions toward Italo-casual and interior decor toward the Miami look. Very trendy music and unusual guest performers.

Written by Ed Stephan <stephan@cc.wwu.edu> 16 September 1984 (USA) See more » Also Known As: Mono (season 1)| Stereo (Seasons 2-5)| Dolby Digital (5.1 surround) (DVD version) Color: Did You Know? Trivia The Ferrari Daytona Spider driven by Crockett and Tubbs in seasons one and two was in actuality a kit car. A plexiglass body on top of a Chevy Corvette chassis with a Corvette power plant on Pirelli tires. This was done by producers in order to save cost over using a genuine Daytona Spider. And then Ferrari CEO Enzo Ferrari did not like the fact a kit car was used therefore the auto maker offered the use of a new white Ferrari Testarossa for seasons three to five. See more » Goofs In the beginning of the episode "Calderon's Return, Part 1", a hired assassin, supposedly one of the best in the world, is seen putting on surgical gloves to keep his fingerprints off the gun he is about to use. However, before he puts on the gloves, he moves the gun off of them by touching the gun butt with his fingertips.

See more » Quotes Christine von Marburg : All I know about you is that you drive a Testarossa and you live on a boat. See more » Crazy Credits Three episodes of the series have these additional songs playing at the closing credits instead of the show's original theme song: "Calderone's Return": Tina Turner - "What's Love Got to Do With It?"; this song plays over footage of Crockett and Tubbs riding a speedboat, plus flashbacks of Tubbs and Angelina. "Phil the Shill": Phil Collins - "Life is a Rat Race" and "Freefall" (final episode): Terry Kath - "Tell Me"; this song plays over a montage of scenes from the show. See more » Connections (Lancaster, ca) – See all my reviews What can I say about Miami Vice that hasn't already been said, except that it is the greatest TV show ever made in the history of television. It quite obvious the best season of Miami Vice is the first season. Season one was the season where Vice really focused all it's episodes in real life situations. Situations which really happen in real life.

Vice started with a bang with the excellent pilot episode, and it never looked backed for the next 22 episodes. Season one was everything that made Mimai Vice what it is now. Action, drama, intensity, thrills , music, style, and relationships. One episode that features all this, is Calderone's Return- Part 1 and 2. Two really fantastic episodes. Other great episodes of season 1 are The Great McCarthy, Little Prince, Milk Run, I can go on and on. One truly classic season. As good as Season 2 was and it was good, it doesn't compare to Season 1. The problem with season 2, is the show focusing on bizarre situations such as voodoo, satanism, and other weird stuff. Season 2 featured three episodes that I consider awful. Whatever Works, Tale of the Goat, and Bushido. Three episodes that season 1 would of never of thought of making. Even though I don't like these episodes, I still consider season 2 a very good season. It just doesn't even come close to the flawless season 1. I do think though that season 2 features the greatest Miami Vice episode of all time which is The Prodigal Son.

A well directed, very entertaining Vice episode that features lots of action, drug busts, romance, and totally awesome 80's music. Your not a real Vice fan if you don't like The Prodigal Son. It's sad to say, out of all five seasons of Vice, only the first two seasons defy what Miami Vice was and are the only two seasons that really kick Miami Vice ass!! Season 3 became more of a darker Vice that took away everything that made the first two seasons such a highly entertaining show. Gone was the pastel background colors, snappy pop tunes, and Crocketts famous look that made him an icon among men and his fast wheeling car. Dark broody colors were replaced in the background, the music was replaced with unknown artists, and Crockett looked more like a banker/rock star, and his beloved Spider Ferrari was replaced with a Testarossa. Which was blown up in the season premiere of season 3 When Irish Eyes are Crying. Season 3 took out all the fun and excitement of the first two seasons and replaced it with a more darker depressing Miami Vice. The outcome, ratings dropped, and the show was not Miami Vice that everyone fell in love with.

I think the problem lies with the shows producer John Nicolla, who left and was replaced by Dick Wolf who probably was never in favor of the pastel energetic Mimai Vice of the first two seasons. So if anyone is to blame of Vice's downfall, it's Dick Wolf. Creator also of the lame Law and Order series. I have nothing to say about seasons 4 or 5 except that was this really Miami Vice the show that was unlike any other in the history of television. I have nothing good to say about seasons 4 or 5, except horrifically awful, especially season 4. Can't get any worse than that. There is great news though as of this writing Miami Vice is finally being released on DVD. Season 1 that is. The complete season of all 22 episodes and it's original music intact. Wow what a collection that will be, I can't wait. Presume to come out later this year, around Christmas time. What a Christams present that will make! Miami VICE LIVES ON!!! THE GREATEST DAMN SHOW EVER MADE IN THE HISTORY OF TELEVISION!!! 56 of 79 people found this review helpful. Was this review helpful to you?

Yes 'Miami Vice' Style - Photo 1 - Pictures - CBS News 'Miami Vice' Style Next The new "Miami Vice" looks fabulous and sounds even better, moving at breakneck pace through a plot that makes little sense. This is how it should be. It's not about plot. It's about style. Could the new Crockett and Tubbs have the impact Don Johnson and Philip Michael Thomas had in the 1980s? Maybe. Take a look at "Miami Vice" style, then and now. At left, a poster at the Cannes Film Festival, May 17, 2006. Credit: Getty Images/Gareth Cattermole They made pink macho. Introduced slouchy, deconstructed Italian suits to the masses. (Armani is forever grateful.) They wore loafers with no socks and T-shirts with suits, a style still imitated by hip males everywhere. And, of course, there was stubble. Not slobby forgot-to-shave stubble, just enough stubble.

Don Johnson, right, as "Sonny" Crocket, and Philip Michael Thomas as Ricardo Tubbs appear in "Miami Vice." Credit: AP In 2006, undercover cops Ricardo Tubbs and Sonny Crockett don a darker palette. They're a bit seedy and even a little grubby. Crockett has long, greasy hair and wears a mustache worthy of a porn star. Tubbs' beard harks back to an earlier era -- maybe Malcolm X. Crockett keeps his stubble, and Tubbs has shaved his head to stubble length. At left, Jamie Foxx, left, and Colin Farrell in the new "Miami Vice." Credit: AP Photo/Universal Pictures One change in "Miami Vice" is not superficial: Tubbs is no mere sidekick in the new movie, and Jamie Foxx gets top billing in the credits. Hey, he's an Oscar winner ("Ray," 2004) and nominee ("Collateral," 2004). Co-stars Foxx, left, and Colin Farrell, pose at the Los Angeles premiere on July 20, 2006.

Credit: AP Photo/Chris Pizzello Actor Jamie Foxx is pretty stylish off screen, too. Here he arrives with actress Naomi Harris for the European premiere of "Miami Vice" at the Odeon Leicester Square In London on July 27, 2006. Credit: Getty Images/Dave Hogan With "Miami Vice," Dublin-born Colin Farrell, age 30, may move up from successful young actor to A-list star. What's not to like about a movie star who brings his mom to the premiere? Farrell and his mother pose on the red carpet at the "Miami Vice" premiere in Los Angeles on July 20, 2006. Credit: AFP/Getty Images His newly heightened fame may take some getting used to. Looking like a deer caught in the headlights, actor Colin Farrell meets fans at the European premiere of "Miami Vice" at the Odeon Leicester Square in London on July 27, 2006. Credit: Getty Images/Dave Hogan There are other signs of the times. In the original "Vice," female detectives Trudy and Gina couldn't have edged Crockett and Tubbs out of the spotlight if they'd aimed machine guns at them.

The movie gives the female cops a bit more camera time. Actress Naomie Harris, shown at a party after the premiere on July 20, 2006, plays Trudy Joplin, an undercover cop and Tubbs' love interest. Credit: Getty Images Tough-talking Det. Gina Calabrese doesn't get much screen time in the new "Vice," but actress Elizabeth Rodriguez makes the most of it, taking care of one bad guy in a particularly colorful way. Rodriguez poses on the red carpet at the premiere of "Miami Vice" in Los Angeles on July 20, 2006. Credit: AFP/Getty Images Actress Gong Li gets to be more than arm candy in the new "Vice." The Chinese movie star plays Isabella, the brains and beauty behind an international drug ring. At left, she poses at the Four Seasons Hotel in Los Angeles on July 14, 2005. Credit: AP Photo/Chris Pizzello Fans of the old "Miami Vice" will miss the original Lt. Martin Castillo.

Edward James Olmos smoked up the small screen, playing the undercover squad boss as a smouldering ninja whose every whisper makes Crockett's knees knock. Barry Shabaka Henley, at the Los Angeles premiere on July 20, 2006, is quietly authoritative as his namesake in the new movie. Credit: Getty Images/Kevin Winter No version of "Miami Vice" would be complete without a parade of unsavory characters. Actor John Hawkes, who plays one of them in the new movie, arrives at the premiere on July 20, 2006. Credit: Getty Images/Kevin Winter Actor John Ortiz plays the nastiest of the bad guys in the new "Miami Vice." Looking much nicer off screen, Ortiz arrives at the premiere on July 20, 2006. Credit: Getty Images/Kevin Winter The new "Vice" conjures up memories of Miami's murky past, when rival drug traffickers had shootouts with automatic weapons, bags of drugs washed up on beaches and police were outspent and outgunned. Miami remains a key command center for the worldwide cocaine trade. But the violence has largely disappeared.

Here, Colin Farrell, left, and Jamie Foxx arm up for a scene in "Miami Vice." Credit: AP Photo/Universal Pictures Like the original, the new "Miami Vice" shines a brilliant light on Miami's club scene. The TV show changed the city's image from "God's Waiting Room" into something close to Hellfire Club, and brought a new generation of party-goers way south. Here, club patrons party at the Mansion nightclub in Miami Beach in a file photo from Aug. 7, 2004. Credit: AP Photo Miami boosters grumbled about their new hedonistic image, but no one objected to the attention given the city's long-neglected art deco architecture. South Beach emerged as a tourist destination known for its trendy restaurants and clubs, pastel-painted hotels and upscale fashion. A brochure for the 10th Annual Art Deco Weekend festival in 1987 features Crockett and Tubbs. Credit: AP/Capitman Archives/Scull Sisters The revival that began with a television show has lasted. South Beach once was a place where gun-toting criminals ruled, retirees lined porches and crumbling hotels stood vacant.

Now old Art Deco hotels like the Clevelander, pictured on July 11, 2006, are hip, upscale and trendy. Credit: AP Photo/J. Pat Carter Will the new "Miami Vice" have an impact as lasting as the original? Not likely, but it's fun while it lasts. Colin Farrell, left, and Jamie Foxx appear onstage for MTV's "Total Request Live" at the MTV Times Square Studios in New York on July 24, 2006. Credit: AP Photo/Jason DeCrow Miami Vice (Series) - TV Tropes Miami Vice You need to login to do this. Get Known if you don't have an account Share I can feel it, coming in the air tonight...Oh lord... "Hey, Tubbs, you ever consider a career in Southern law enforcement?" [chuckles] "Maybe. Maybe..." Miami Vice is a crime drama Buddy Cop Show which ran on NBC from 1984-1989. Created by former Hill Street Blues writer and producer Anthony Yerkovich, the series drew much of its premise from real-life laws allowing property seized from drug dealers to be used in drug enforcement.

In other words, if a drug dealer has a Cool Car or Cool Boat , and that drug dealer is jailed, the police can use his stuff. These laws gave the producers a perfectly valid excuse for putting their public-servant characters in Ferraris and Armani suits. The series stars Don Johnson and Philip Michael Thomas as James "Sonny" Crockett and Ricardo "Rico" Tubbs, two pastel-colored officers of Miami-Dade PD's vice squad, as they chase down drug lords, pimps, renegade FBI agents, weapon smugglers, militia members, and other badly-dressed criminals whose downfall is to be ignorant of Miami's worst-kept secret : psst, these two are actually cops. Crockett's the muscle , a former wide receiver with a personality not unlike his namesake (He even owns an alligator ). Tubbs is a New York transplant who arrives in Miami to avenge his brother's murder ; he specializes in...well, posing as an out-of-towner and getting it on with a parade of beautiful ladies. Together, They Fight Crime! . The series was notable for its use of contemporary popular music, and for being one of the first shows regularly broadcast in stereo.

By design, the show often resembled a music video rather than a standard Police Procedural . Extended musical sequences were common, often featuring little or no dialogue and numerous images of cars, boats, guns, nightlife, and scenery . The show was filmed on location in Miami, and made use of a distinctive color palette, mostly white and pastels. Miami Vice was one of the most influential (perhaps the most influential) TV series of all times when it comes to style and fashion. Crockett's white-suit-over-t-shirt style, Perma-Stubble , and Ray-Ban sunglasses all became fashion trends. His lack of socks did not. Even in the 2010's many people's ideas of the 80's come straight from the series (which explains why many people tend to have a rather exaggerated idea of the period ï¿½ not everybody dressed like the pimps and drug dealers of the series). Miami Vice features examples of: Affably Evil : Some of the bad guys are polite enough... until it comes time to pull the weapons out. Tubbs occasionally grows one of these as a disguise. Might possibly qualify as Beard of Evil since he does it to pose as a drug dealer.

Zito also grows a massive beard during the second season. Badass Boast : From the episode "Glades". A drug dealer has a shotgun to the head of an innocent young girl, taunting Crockett that all he needs to do is twitch and the girl is dead. Crockett's response? "Maybe...you won't even...twitch..." Then he shoots the drug dealer in the head. He doesn't twitch. This scene was recreated note for note in The Movie . Battle Couple : Of the few times they're paired together, Tubbs and Valerie are this. Crockett, while amnesiac (see Criminal Amnesiac below). This is discussed at times as a real danger for undercover cops. Being Good Sucks : Several instances in the later seasons (which contributes to Crockett and Tubbs eventually quitting the force) show that, for all their attempts to do the right thing, it often results in the villains getting off on technicalities and innocent people being caught in the crossfire. Beleaguered Childhood Friend : On many occasions, the detectives are approached by an old friend who has gotten themselves in trouble. Often the trouble involves illegal activities on the part of the friend. It usually ends bad.

Tubbs hates machine guns, especially when they are being fired directly at him. Kind of ironic since he himself keeps an arsenal that would make the NRA squeal with delight. Also Crockett and men who abuse women. This takes an ugly turn if he's drunk. Don't ever touch Tubbs' Cadillac... just don't. BFG : Tubbs carries various shortened shotguns as his standard sidearm. Commonly an Ithaca 37 Stakeout or a sawed-off double barrel. Big Bad : Frank Hackman , a recurring antagonist, manages to be one of the most dangerous criminals that Crockett has faced. Big "NO!" : Crockett does this at the end of "No Exit" when Rita shows up and shoots Amato at the end when he's about to get off scot-free . Bittersweet Ending : Many, many of them. This was one of the first cop shows where the good guys didn't always win, or if they did there was a high price to pay. Bloodless Carnage : For all the shootouts that take place on the show, they rarely use squibs or showed blood. When they do, it would be driblets, not gaping wounds.

Bookends : The pilot and series finale both end with Crockett asking Tubbs if he's ever considered a career in Southern law enforcement as they walk off. The pilot and series finale also have Crockett and Tubbs chasing a drug dealer who's escaping via flying boat (hell, it's even the same dock!). Broken Pedestal : The repeated moments when one of the heroes finds out an old friend , love interest, or a colleague they used to trust has gone bad. In the acclaimed episode "Out Where The Buses Don't Run," the detectives are approached by a former colleague, Hank Weldon, who says he is on the tracks of a drug lord who disappeared five years ago. Weldon seems mentally unstable and fixated on said drug lord. At the end, it turns out that Weldon has murdered the drug lord and kept his body hidden for five years. Cartwright Curse : Crockett's second wife Caitlin. CIA Evil, DEA Good : In Southeast Asia, Castillo's DEA team went up against a drug-trafficking general with CIA connections. The DEA tried to ambush an opium shipment, but the CIA had sold them out, and they got slaughtered.

Clip Show : "A Bullet for Crockett" has most of the characters reminiscing about past missions when Crockett is shot during a drug bust gone bad. Continuity Nod : The Testarossa that is given to Crockett in "Stone's War" is hinted to be the same one owned by Irish mobster Bunny Berrigan in the preceding episode, "When Irish Eyes Are Smiling" (as Crockett comments that it has "new paint" when he first sees it). In "Stone's War", Crockett says that he can't play Stone's recording of the massacre in Nicaragua because he doesn't own a television. Ten episodes later, in "Forgive Us Our Debts", Crockett finally buys a small television for the bedroom on his boat. "A Bullet for Crockett" begins with a scene reminiscent of the pilot, where (in both instances) Crockett and Tubbs drive to an undercover drug deal as Phil Collins ' "In The Air Tonight" plays in the background. In "Deliver Us From Evil", Crockett's locker has a photograph with him and his college friend Robbie, who appeared in the second-season episode "Buddies".

Cool Boat : For the first two seasons, Sonny Crockett lives on an Endeavour 40 sailboat, which is replaced by a Endeavour 42 sailboat for the rest of the series run. He also pilots a Chris Craft Stinger 390 in the first season and a Wellcraft 38 Scarab KV afterwards. Cool Car : Crockett drives a Ferrari Daytona Spyder 365 GTS/4 during the first two seasons and a white 1986 Ferrari Testarossa later. The first Ferrari was a replica (for budget reasons) which was replaced by the real article at the insistence of the manufacturer. Ricardo Tubbs drives a 1964 Cadillac Coupe de Ville Convertible. Cool Guns : Given that Michael Mann was a producer, this is a given. Special mention should be given to Crockett's 10mm Bren Ten pistol from the first two seasons, two of which were custom built (and rechambered in .45 since there were no 10mm blanks in 1984) for the show.

Despite the Bren Ten being an indisputable failure, it still has a cult following due to its presence on Miami Vice, and the custom finish job used on the Bren Tens in the show (Mann had the slide of both guns given a hard chrome finish to make them more visible on camera during night-time scenes) has even come to be known as "Miami Vicing". Cool Pet : Crockett has a pet alligator, Elvis. Cool Shades : Worn by Crockett and many other characters - justified because of the intense Florida sun, of course. Corrupt Bureaucrat : See Dirty Cop . Creator Cameo : Jan Hammer (the show's composer) appears as a wedding musician in the episodes "One Way Ticket" and the fourth-season episode "Like a Hurricane". Criminal Amnesiac : Crockett loses his memory while undercover as a drug dealer. As a result, he becomes the drug dealer and proceeds to take over much of the Miami market. But in the process he shoots Tubbs when his ex-partner tries to force his memories back. When Crockett does regain his memory and tries to return to the vice squad, he's arrested.

It takes a convoluted plot of defeating an Ax-Crazy criminal and saving Tubbs' life to return Crockett to the force. Cuffs Off, Rub Wrists : Done by both Crockett and Tubbs early in the series finale. Da Chief : Castillo, played by Edward James Olmos. Damn, It Feels Good to Be a Gangster : Played straight and deconstructed. The show explores the glamourous side of the Miami underworld, and part of the reason Crockett and Tubbs are so cool is that they play along in this world. On the other hand, we often see the less glamorous consequences of a criminal lifestyle and how cruel and ruthless the underworld is. Darker and Edgier : After Dick Wolf replaced Michael Mann as show runner, the show traded in the bright colors and pastels for darker clothing (and darker stories). A Day in the Limelight : Switek and Zito in "Made For Each Other". Death Glare : Lieutenant Castillo. Edward James Olmos just pulls this off like nobody else. Death Seeker : The title character of "Evan" is implied to be this.

Deep South : A few episodes whose plots require that the protagonists to travel outside of Miami involve them dealing with such crises as a turf war between redneck families in the Everglades. Crockett himself is a very stereotypical southerner at times. Dirty Cop : One of the show's themes was how the "lure of easy money" surrounding the drug traffic could turn even your closest friends on the police force into backstabbing criminals. Dirty Harriet : Gina and Trudy often impersonate prostitutes. Downer Ending : More the rule than the exception. This show was one of the first where the good guys didn't always win. Drugs Are Bad : A persistent theme of the series is that not only does the drug trade have a lot of death and destruction in its wake, but the individual drug users are led to a criminal lifestyle by their addiction. Early Installment Weirdness : The first few episodes form a conventional Five-Episode Pilot , and had a large number of elements (like the character of Lieutenant Lou Rodriguez, who was killed off after his actor expressed displeasure living in Miami and wanted out) that seem odd in comparison to later episodes.

Especially the musical montages, which used to take up extended airtime and would occur for the duration of the song instead of a short clip in later episodes and seasons. These same episodes also feature a really dodgy, prototype remix of Miami Vice Theme in their opening credits, which is missing the main guitar line and just sounds like a lot of aimless drumming. Zito and Switek's schemes used to take up entire segments during certain episodes in the first season, but this was eventually minimalized and removed altogether in later seasons. Several of the early episodes had scenes where the team planned their operations together - later episodes skipped this setup and went directly to the execution of the plan. The '80s : One of the Trope Codifiers . The show defined many tropes - music, fashion, attitudes - that people link to that decade. '80s Hair : Most of the women who appeared on the show, notably guest star Pam Grier as seen in this photo ◊ Heterosexual Life-Partners : Crockett and Tubbs.

Hidden Depths : Consciously and intentionally averted by Crockett, who in spite of being college-educated and having the occasional heartfelt opinion needs to come across as shallowly as possible for the sake of his job, sanity, and keeping up appearances. In "Definitely Miami", he immediately backtracks on realizing that he's referenced Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot , to Tubbs' surprise. Hooker with a Heart of Gold : If the crew isn't bringing down drug dealers, they're investigating sex crimes usually involving prostitutes. Some of their informants on the drug cases are call girls and streetwalkers. Impractically Fancy Outfit : Two of the most iconic long-sleeved blazers on television are worn by characters who run around in high-stress situations in South Florida's legendarily sweltering climate. Improbable Aiming Skills : What Crockett and Tubbs can do with pistols is simply amazing. The Informant : Crockett and Tubbs regularly called upon Izzy "The Snitch" Moreno and Neville "Noogie" Lamont to get information on whatever big plot was going down. The two cops treated the latter like some unpleasant form of fungus, while the former was treated like a favored pet.

Izzy once even helped the two cops out while Izzy was in the middle of committing another crime (the crime was straight burglary... they're Vice cops... they cut him a break). Instrumental Theme Tune : "Crockett's Theme". Interpol Special Agent : More or less averted by the Interpol agent in "French Twist." She flies to Miami, hot on the trail of an international criminal... and gives the detectives advice. At least until she turns out to be a French government assassin sent because He Knows Too Much . Product Placement : The cool clothes and sunglasses throughout the series. The Ferraris driven by Crocket and Tubbs. The first one was a replica; when the Ferrari company found this out, they offered to lend a real one if the fake was disposed of. It was, in a spectacular case of External Combustion . Also applies to Crockett's handguns in the the television series, namely the Bren Ten for the first two seasons, and the Smith & Wesson 645 for the rest of the series. Rape as Drama : Several episodes dealt with associates of the Vice team being raped by the villain(s), prompting Crockett, Tubbs, Gina and/or Trudy to go after them in revenge.

Series Continuity Error : Due to the network switching up the order of certain episodes throughout the series, characters and/or props change their appearance radically from one episode to another. Infamously, Crockett is driving around in his Ferrari Daytona (and using it for cover in a shootout) in the third-season episode "El Viejo", seven episodes after it was destroyed by an arms dealer and replaced with the Testarossa. This was due to the fact that "El Viejo" was originally planned to be the third-season premiere, but was pushed farther into the season and replaced with a more action-packed opener. Zito's beard disappears and reappears at random throughout the second season, due to the running order of the episodes being changed. Shoot Everything That Moves : In several episodes, perhaps most notably "Freefall," the series finale. When faced with the fact that General Borbon may walk without testifying about the cartel due to political corruption, Crockett and Tubbs confront the dictator in a running firefight, killing his guards to a man and blowing up Borbon's departing seaplane. Shout-Out : Several episodes of the show "borrowed" plots from various movies, such as High Noon or The Trouble with Harry .

Season 3's "Shadow in the Dark" was pretty much one giant allusion to Manhunter , which Michael Mann himself directed. In Season 2's "Out Where the Buses Don't Run", Weldon's computer is named after his ex-wife, Lorraine. It also happened to be the name of the Amiga prototype that appeared at the 1984 Consumer Electronics Show. The Amiga prototype took its name from the motherboard, which was named Lorraine, after the company president's wife. Slimeball : Tubbs in the pilot basically drools and makes really perverted sounds when a pretty lady walks past him. He gets better. Soundtrack Dissonance : While the show's soundtrack and Music Video Syndrome style are among its main draws, the series is rife with out-of-place examples that can actually be pretty jarring: such as cheery pop music playing as the theme to a violent murder, or an angsty ballad playing during a mellow driving scene. How Miami Vice launched the ’80s on TV, then died with its decade · A Very Special Episode · The A.V.

Club Share Tweet Sometimes a single TV episode can exemplify the spirit of its time and the properties that make television a unique medium. A Very Special Episode presents The A.V. Club’s survey of TV at its most distinctive. Conceptually, a decade isn’t always a 10-year period that begins and ends with a year ending in “1” or “0.” It can instead be a period framed by watershed events. Some say “The ’60s” began when JFK was assassinated and ended with The Rolling Stones’ disastrous Altamont concert, and “The ’70s” began when Nixon was re-elected and ended when the Iran hostages were released. By that logic, maybe the ’80s became “The ’80s” when Crockett and Tubbs rolled through a dark Miami night with streetlights reflecting off their hood and hubcaps, while Phil Collins’ “In The Air Tonight” simmered on the soundtrack. Source There are multiple legends about how Miami Vice came to be.

The most famous is that NBC head Brandon Tartikoff scrawled “MTV Cops” on a napkin, then went looking for someone in the NBC stable to develop the idea, eventually settling on Hill Street Blues writer-producer Anthony Yerkovich. But Yerkovich has always claimed that even before Tartikoff approached him, he was already drafting the idea for what would become Miami Vice, inspired by news stories he’d been reading about the booming drug trade on Florida’s Gold Coast. (In fact, Gold Coast was the show’s original title.) And nearly everyone who wrote about Miami Vice in the ’80s pegged the show’s real creative force as executive producer Michael Mann, who’d been a staff writer on Starsky And Hutch with Yerkovich, and had been called away from a budding career as a feature-film director to help bring some of his neo-noir style to this bold new NBC experiment. Mann actually never directed a single episode of Miami Vice, and is only credited as a writer on one script. The two-hour pilot that established the show’s style and tone was scripted by Yerkovich and directed by Thomas Carter, the former White Shadow actor who helmed the snazzy pilot for St.

Elsewhere two years earlier. But Mann helped give Miami Vice its defining pastel look by decreeing “no earth tones” to the set and costume designers, and Mann was chiefly responsible for guiding the show from its seventh episode (by that point, Yerkovich was gone) to the end of its second season (after which Mann was more focused on his own new show, Crime Story). Mann certainly deserves a lot of credit for Miami Vice becoming a sensation. But Yerkovich was onto something when he suggested the Miami drug trade as a subject for a TV drama. In a 1984 interview with The New York Times, Yerkovich said he was drawn to this city that “used to be a middle-class vacation land,” and intended to explore what it had become instead: a criminal kingdom. In Billy Corben’s 2006 documentary Cocaine Cowboys , Miami Herald crime reporter Edna Buchanan claimed that at one point in the ’80s, an entire Miami police academy graduating class ended up dead or in jail. And a local police scientist in Cocaine Cowboys estimated that any random $20 bill plucked from a Miami wallet in 1981 would’ve revealed traces of cocaine.

Clearly, Yerkovich had found the perfect setting for an ’80s cop show. As for Tartikoff’s “MTV Cops” suggestion—well, he wasn’t taking that big of a risk there. Network executives are supposed to pursue the youth demographic, and the youths of the early ’80s were embracing MTV as the leading indicator of style and cool. But Tartikoff seemed to understand that bringing MTV to network primetime would take more than a few skinny ties and some extra cans of mousse. He allowed Miami Vice a bigger budget, to pay for the rights to popular songs, and to shoot extra footage for montages set to those songs. Mann then brought in Czech musician Jan Hammer, an electronic-music virtuoso whose moody pieces added a modern, almost European feel to Miami Vice, much like Tangerine Dream had done for Mann’s critically acclaimed 1981 film Thief. All those creative influences—Yerkovich’s ripped-from-real-life Miami flavor, Mann’s cinematic style, and Tartikoff’s audience-grabbing sizzle—are evident in Miami Vice’s opening-credits sequence, which is one of the best of its kind.

As Hammer’s theme song, well, hammers, the screen flashes glimpses of palm trees, flamingoes, racetracks, jai alai, choppy waves, jiggling breasts and derrieres, all in a rush. The credits leave no doubt about where the show is set, or what it’s selling: pretty pictures and decadence. Then, just when the music approaches a crescendo, it comes to an abrupt close, over a shot of the Miami skyline at night. There’s an ominousness about that—a sense that all those trappings of luxury come at a dark, steep price. Source The credits don’t lie about what Miami Vice is. The cold open of the first-season episode “No Exit” doesn’t, either. The series’ heroes, James “Sonny” Crockett (played by Don Johnson) and Ricardo Tubbs (Philip Michael Thomas) begin the episode by staking out a sleepy, beach-adjacent neighborhood along with their colleagues in the Miami PD’s vice division, waiting for an undercover operation to culminate in the arrest of some arms dealers. But the bust goes sour, leading to a shootout in the streets, and the revelation that the bad guys have gotten their hands on heavy-duty machine guns.

This sets the episode’s plot in motion. But the opening sequence is a fine piece of filmmaking in and of itself, filled with local color—old people, Cuban coffee, pink-hued art-deco architecture—and clear characterizations. Sonny is established straight away as a scruffy good ol’ boy with an innate cool, while Tubbs is passionate and mercurial, with a bit of New York City “street” edge. The opening has its visual flourishes, including forced camera angles and one gun’s-eye-view shot that resembles classic Warner Bros. gangster pictures. And most remarkably, the episode begins in medias res, with only a minimum of grounding in what’s going on and who’s involved. That’s partly what gave Miami Vice its reputation for being a cut above nearly everything else on TV at the time: It trusted the audience to jump into the action and catch up quickly. (The automatic-weapons fire helped keep the viewers’ attention, no doubt.) “No Exit” was reportedly originally titled “Three Eyed Turtle” (until someone in NBC’s Standards & Practices department apparently consulted whatever the 1984 version of the Urban Dictionary was, and found out what that term means ).

It was written by Maurice Hurley from a story by Charles R. Leinenweber, and the episode was directed by David “Hutch” Soul. (His ex-partner, Paul Michael “Starsky” Glaser, directed an earlier episode in the first season.) It aired before Glaser’s episode on November 9, 1984, though, and because “No Exit” quickly became one of Miami Vice’s signature episodes, it was repeated twice in 1985, and once more in 1986. “No Exit” marks something of a turning point in Miami Vice: The first six episodes of the series were inconsistent in tone—sometimes showing what became the familiar, worldly Miami Vice attitude, and sometimes coming off as a conventional, corny mid-’80s cop show in flashier clothes—but by episode seven, Mann had taken over as the sole executive producer, and Edward James Olmos had come on board to play Crockett and Tubbs’ serious-minded boss, Lt. Martin Castillo, which helped add gravitas. “No Exit” is primarily remembered for bringing a previously unknown actor named Bruce Willis to national attention.

Willis was 29 years old when he guest-starred in “No Exit,” and his acting résumé to that point had been limited to off-Broadway theater, a Levi’s commercial, and uncredited extra work on a few movies. Willis came out of nowhere when he played sinister gun-runner Tony Amato in “No Exit,” but made such a strong impression that only a year later, he was starring in his own show, ABC’s Moonlighting . Source Even now, there’s some dispute over what Miami Vice stood for. The show could be critical of the Reagan-era government, but in the same way a lot of ’80s action shows and movies were: grumbling about ineffectual bureaucracy while saluting the men within the system who do something. “No Exit” was especially on-message in that regard. While going through Amato’s house, Crockett and Tubbs raise their eyebrows at the arms-dealer’s catalog, titled The Arsenal Of Democracy. But their discovery turns out to be foreshadowing.

After the Miami cops arrest Amato, the feds order his release, saying they need Amato in play, funneling weapons to Central American “freedom fighters.” Crockett is disgusted, though he’s just as unhappy with the way justice is ultimately done, when Rita shows up with a gun and shoots her husband. Crockett yells, “Nooooo….” in slow motion. Freeze frame. Cut to black. Miami Vice followed the same path to success that NBC shows like Hill Street Blues and Cheers did during the ’80s. First, it won over the critics. People magazine was typical with its praise, calling Miami Vice “the first show to look really new and different since color TV was invented.” Then, after a mediocre Nielsen showing in its first season, Miami Vice surged in summer repeats, right around the time it was being showered with Emmy nominations. In all, Miami Vice’s season one was nominated for 15 Emmys, including Best Drama Series, and won four: for art direction, cinematography, sound editing, and best supporting actor (for Olmos).

A soundtrack was released at the start of the second season, and topped the charts for more than two months, thanks largely to Hammer’s theme song, which was a Billboard No. 1 hit. MCA released the feature-length pilot on videocassette, and sold more than 60,000 copies, which was unheard of at the time. Johnson and Thomas were all over TV, and in magazines—including Time and Rolling Stone, both of which rarely put TV stars on the cover. Thomas boasted publicly about his “EGOT plan,” saying he intended to be recognized by the Emmys, Grammys, Oscars, and Tonys before his career was done. To get a start on that, Thomas released an album called Living The Book Of My Life, featuring the single “Just The Way I Planned It.” Johnson launched a recording career as well, and actually scored a hit single in 1986, with “Heartbeat.” Source The high didn’t last. Mann moved on after the second season, leaving the show in the hands of Dick Wolf, who chose to make the heroes broodier, the storylines more complicated, and the look of the show less colorful.

Meanwhile, other networks stole Miami Vice’s thunder, premièring their own shows with pop music and cinematic effects, and generally becoming more adventurous and hip with their programming. Miami Vice’s ratings dipped dramatically, and—fittingly—the show that defined the decade in so many ways ended in 1989. (For his part, Wolf moved on in 1990 to his next NBC show, Law & Order, which also reshaped the policier for its times, albeit more gradually.) The legacy of Miami Vice is tough to pin down. The show could be seen as a step on the path toward the more mature TV dramas of today, except that it really isn’t any more sophisticated than Lou Grant or Hill Street Blues, two of the dramas Yerkovich was intending to supplant. That lack of sophistication didn’t necessarily harm Miami Vice; its first two seasons were among the best TV of its era. But in terms of storytelling and subject matter, Miami Vice wasn’t breaking as much new ground as the hype allowed. Style, though, is another matter—and not just filmmaking style.

Frankly, when people think about Miami Vice today, most likely what first comes to mind are the white jackets, the pink ties, and the fashion designer’s vision of “casual.” The Miami Vice clothes are so iconic that when a sitcom today wants to signify “the late ’80s” in a flashback sequence, the costume designers just make the male star look like Don Johnson. “No Exit” is remarkably fashion-forward: True, Rita Amato looks strangely dowdy in her best Diane Chambers frock, but Tony Amato’s puffy, high-waisted pants and Sonny Crockett’s striped T-shirt look like they stopped off in Miami on their way from the runway to a catalog. That’s the way it often goes with pop-culture revolutions: What survives isn’t what everyone thought was so important about them at the time. Partly that’s because such revolutions are unplanned, which means that even their most ardent followers have a hard time articulating the reasons for their devotion. Because they didn’t even know what they were waiting for until it appeared.

Next time on A Very Special Episode: Nash Bridges, “Wild Card” Miami Vice Fan Reviews & Ratings - TV.com The tv series is remembered by everyone from the 80s. It redefined how people dressed and acted. Great show. 9.0 By fshocker , Mar 31, 2010 The tv series is remembered by everyone from the 80s. It redefined how people dressed and acted. Great show. Two police detectives in a fun and action filled series from the hot city of Miami. It's been recognized as one of the most recognized and action packed TV series of all time. I love these shirts by the way: . Despite some implausible storylines, cornball humor, and over-the-top melodrama, Miami Vice was the seminal Cop Show of The 80s Me Decade. No Cop Show before it had dealt with the realities of drugs, power, corruption, and money in Multi-cultural America the way this show did. And it was FUN to watch! Created by Anthony Yerkovich and produced by famed movie director Michael Mann. Don Johnson as James "Sonny" Crockett, Phillip Michael Thomas as Ricardo Tubbs, and Edward James Olmos as the stoic Lt.

Martin Castillo, were perfect in their respective roles. If they were one thing; They were cops! The rest of the supporting cast fit in well. As well as providing comic relief to the more serious themes of evil, vice, and crime. Jan Hammer created one of the most recognizable themes in all of Television History as well as composing background music for nearly every episode of it's five year run. (Jan Hammer dropped out of the series towards the end. Tim Truman was chosen by Michael Mann to compose some great music for the final 22 episodes.) Seasons Four and Five are considered the years that Miami Vice "jumped the shark." If you're a fan, you know where you stand. I love them all. It's one of the episodes I remember vividly from the 80s and it's a scream! Tight and loose fitting pastel fashions. 80s New Wave, Pop, Top 40, and Reggae provided some of the cinematic background Music Video sequences for a brand new MTV Generation. Fast exotic cars, like Ferraris and Lamborghinis. They too, were characters in the show. Fast exotic car chases. Wealthy well-dressed eccentric cocaine and heroin dealers. The Miami Club Scene.

Beautiful modern luxury dream homes. Fast Cigarette boats and luxury yachts. Brutal and blazing police shootouts. DO YOU AGREE? Miami Vice - NBC.com NBC.com Don Johnson as Detective James Crockett Philip Michael Thomas as Detective Ricardo Tubbs Saundra Santiago as Detective Gina Calabrese Olivia Brown as Detective Trudy Joplin Michael Talbott as Detective Stan Switek Edward James Olmos as Lieutenant Martin Castillo Starring Don Johnson ("Eastbound and Down," "From Dusk Till Dawn") and Philip Michael Thomas ("Nash Bridges," "Grand Theft Auto: Vice City"), created by Anthony Yerkovich and produced by Michael Mann ("Heat," "The Insider," "Collateral," "The Aviator"), "Miami Vice" focused on the Miami Police Department's vice squad and its efforts to end drug trafficking and prostitution. Centered on the unlikely partnership of Sonny Crockett and Ricardo Tubbs - who first meet when Tubbs is undercover in a drug cartel - the series ran for five seasons on NBC, from 1984 to 1990.

It was both influenced by and a great influence on the popular culture of the time, making use of new wave and other current music as well as introducing the U.S. to the colorful and laid-back styles of Italian men's fashion.

The credits of "Miami Vice" are a who's-who of guest stars, including Rita Moreno ("West Side Story," "OZ"), George Takei ("Star Trek"), Terry O'Quinn ("Lost"), Brad Dourif ("Deadwood"), Jimmy Smits ("NYPD Blue," "The West Wing," "Dexter"), Michael Madsen ("Reservoir Dogs," "24"), CCH Pounder ("The Shield," "Law & Order: SVU," "NCIS: New Orleans"), Laurence Fishburne ("The Matrix," "Hannibal"), Kyra Sedgwick ("The Closer"), Nathan Lane ("The Lion King," "The Good Wife"), Julia Roberts ("Pretty Woman," "Eat Pray Love"), Lou Diamond Phillips ("Numb3rs," "Longmire"), Robert Pastorelli ("Murphy Brown"), Penelope Ann Miller ("The Artist," "Mistresses"), Kim Coates ("Sons of Anarchy"), Richard Belzer ("Homicide: Life on the Street"), John Turturro ("The Big Lebowski," "O Brother, Where Art Thou?"), Ben Stiller ("Zoolander," "Arrested Development"), Benicio Del Toro ("The Usual Sus

pects," "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas"), John Spencer ("The West Wing"), Michael Richards ("Seinfeld"), Oliver Platt ("Fargo"), Annette Bening ("American Beauty"), Wesley Snipes ("The Expendables 3"), Ron Perlman ("Hellboy"), Steve Buscemi ("30 Rock," "Boardwalk Empire"), David Strathairn ("The Bourne Legacy," "Alphas," "Godzilla"), Ellen Greene ("Pushing Daisies," "The Young and the Restless," "The Walking Dead"), Michael Chiklis ("The Shield," "Vegas," "American Horror Story"), Viggo Mortensen ("The Lord of the Rings"), Bill Paxton ("Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D."), Liam Neeson ("Schindler's List," "Star Wars: The Phantom Menace"), Dean Stockwell ("Quantum Leap"), Joe Morton ("The Good Wife," "Eureka," "Scandal"), Eartha Kitt ("Batman," "The Emperor's New Groove"), Bruce Willis ("Moonlighting," "Die Hard"), Ed O'Neill ("Married: With Children," "Modern Family"), Melanie Griffith ("Working Girl," "Raising Hope"), Matt Frewer ("Eureka," "Orphan Black

," "The Knick"), Ving Rhames ("Mission: Impossible"), Chris Cooper ("Lonesome Dove," "The Bourne Identity," "The Muppets"), Ian McShane ("Lovejoy," "Deadwood," "American Horror Story"), Helena Bonham Carter ("Fight Club," "Harry Potter"), Giancarlo Esposito ("Revolution," "Once Upon a Time," "Breaking Bad"), Stanley Tucci ("Easy A," "The Hunger Games"), Pam Grier ("Coffy," "Jackie Brown") and Dennis Farina ("Crime Story," "Law & Order").

Musicians featured on the show include Frankie Valli, Gene Simmons, Rob Nilsson, Frank Zappa, Leonard Cohen, Willie Nelson, Miles Davis, James Brown, Ted Nugent, Glenn Frey, Sheena Easton and Phil Collins. In addition, comedians Penn Jillette, Tommy Chong and Chris Rock, supermodel Iman, director Michael Bay ("Bad Boys," "Armageddon," "Transformers") and TV producer Jack Kenny ("Caroline in the City," "Warehouse 13") also appeared in minor roles. "Miami Vice" also featured the writing of Michael Piller ("Star Trek: The Next Generation," "Deep Space Nine" and "Voyager"), Mystery Writers of America Grand Master Robert Crais (the Elvis Cole series), John Milius ("Apocalypse Now"), Julia Cameron ("The Artist's Way") and Dick Wolf (the "Law & Order" franchise). It was nominated for multiple Emmy and Golden Globe Awards, including Outstanding Drama Series. Don Johnson won the Golden Globe for Outstanding Actor in a Drama in 1986, and Edward James Olmos won an Emmy in 1985 and a Golden Globe in 1986 for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama.

More "Miami Vice" (1984) - FAQ The content of this page was created directly by users and has not been screened or verified by IMDb staff. Visit our FAQ Help to learn more FAQ What happened at the end of the series? At the end of the episode Freefall we see Crockett and Tubbs resign from the police force, Tubbs planning to head back to New York to be a Private Investigator and Crockett saying that he's going to just keep heading south in Florida and see what happens (it's possible that he's actually rich, his dead wife presumably having left him her earnings from pop stardom). As Crockett drives Tubbs to the airport he asks him has he ever considered a career in southern law enforcement just as he does in the pilot. The series is at an end but there are then four more episodes after that because these are lost episodes not originally aired at the time because they were deemed too inappropriate for TV at the time because they had very strong theme's such as child molestation. (They were aired when NBC played repeats) What is Sonny's real name? His real name is James Crockett which was spoken only by Ricardo Tubbs in one episode.

Nobody else on the detective squad ever called him by this name just Sonny. Though many times Lt. Castillo addressed and referred to him as just "Crockett." How many tours of duty did Sonny Crockett serve during the Vietnam War? Crockett served at least four or perhaps five tours of duty. In the pilot he tells Tubbs that he'd played football at the University of Florida where he'd starred as a halfback and was eligible for the NFL draft of the early 70's though instead was drafted by the federal government where he spent several years in the " southeast asian " conference as a United States Marine and was a direct nod to his military service during the Vietnam War. So therefore after his tours of duty ended Sonny Crockett was discharged and came back home to the states where he joined the Miami-Dade police department. And the rest is television history. Whatever became of Sonny's pet gator named Elvis? Nobody really knows for certain. Elvis was introduced in the pilot and was seen in many episodes of seasons 1 and 2 and in some season 3 episodes. Though at some point in this season Crockett no longer mentions his pet gator and Elvis was never seen again throughout the rest of the series.

In the series finale, Freefall, Sonny leaves the yacht for the last time and Elvis is nowhere to be seen. We can assume that Crockett turned his pet over to the fish and game authorities or to a local zoo or wildlife park to live out the rest of his years. Was the black car featured in seasons 1 & 2 a genuine Ferrari? No, the black convertible driven by Crockett and Tubbs was in actuality a Ferrari "kit car." At the time in 1984 the producers and NBC didn't want to pay the auto maker for legal rights to use a real sports coupe. So they commissioned a genuine looking 1972 Ferrari Daytona Spider kit car using a fiber glass shell built onto an 1980 Corvette chassis and power plant complete with Ferrari hardware and sleek wheels.. After the show became a huge hit in prime time then Ferrari boss Enzo Ferrari did not like that a lookalike kit car was being used for the show so he offered NBC and the producers a real Testarossa for season 3. Therefore the Daytona kit car had to be destroyed on camera early in the season and the new Ferrari was used all the way through the fifth and final season.

And the rest is television history and one of the black kit cars used along with the white Testarossa were purchased by a private collector and both cars are sitting in an auto museum in south Florida today. What was Martin Castillo's background before he became a vice cop? He worked for the DEA for many years as an undercover agent in southeast Asia. In the season 2, two-part episode, The Golden Triangle, Castillo tells Tubbs how he once was stationed in the mountain range in between Burma (now Myanmar) and Thailand for three years. Tubbs says, "three years, that's a long time." To which his boss replies, "its a lifetime." And in the season 3 episode, The Savage , there's a detailed flashback to Castillo's past as an agent once stationed in southeast Asia during the Vietnam war in the early 1970's. He was investigating the murders of several local prostitutes with the help of a local police investigator name of Tran. Who came to Miami in the present searching for the same serial killer from the past. It seems that Martin Castillo certainly has had a ton of on the job experience as both an investigator and drug enforcement agent.

He's an old school by the book cop who's been there, done that. Was Don Johnson the first actor cast to play Sonny Crockett? No, in fact in 1984 prior to casting the pivotal roles of Crockett and Tubbs then NBC entertainment chief Brandon Tartikoff had considered former Chips actor Larry Wilcox for the co lead. One reason was that there was a shortage of leading men in the mid-30's age group and that Wilcox had been a cop on the previous television series. However executive producer Michael Mann and creator/writer Anthony Yerkovich had remembered Don Johnson from four failed pilots and had him audition with Philip Michael Thomas for the lead roles. Therefore Wilcox was out and Johnson and Thomas displayed strong on camera chemistry so were then cast as the leads and the rest became prime time television history. Was Sonny Crockett originally meant to wear high end men's fashions? Not at first, prior to shooting the pilot for Miami Vice, Don Johnson had envisioned the character of Crockett as somewhat of a south Florida cowboy. He wanted to wear blue denims and leather jackets and be a chain smoker.

However Michael Mann and the writers wanted for Crockett to be a fashionable police detective who would blend in well as an undercover cop. Plus leather coats and blue jeans did not mix well with the heat and humidity of Miami therefore Johnson relented on his wanting to wear jeans and leather and agreed to dress in designer mens wear provided by Hugo Boss, Gianni Versace & Giorgio Armani and he was also a smoker too. Was Philip Michael Thomas the first actor cast for the role of Tubbs? During the show's preproduction there were other actors who'd screen tested with Don Johnson and the producers were not impressed, however after PMT's audition he'd made such an impression on Michael Mann and creator Anthony Yerkovich that they called him back and the rest is television history. Miami Vice - Fanlore Miami Vice 8 Notes & References Show synopsis The adventures of the Miami Police Department Vice Squad involve flashy cars, designer clothing, beautiful women, drugs, and lots and lots and lots of emoporn . Primarily a buddy cop show, the fandom got a boost when the 2006 (remake) movie came out.

The buddy cop partners were Detectives James "Sonny" Crockett and Ricardo "Rico" Tubbs, commanded by their superior officer Lieutenant Martin Castillo. The Characters Crockett (left) and Tubbs (right) on the cover of Gold Coast #3. The main cast of characters included: The protagonists: James "Sonny" Crockett, who spent most of his time undercover as Sonny Burnett, a lowlife drug-runner who lived on a sailboat with his pet alligator. His 24-7 undercover lifestyle, long string of tragic romances, and the vast number of characters he failed to save made Crockett an impressive well of manpain . He was prone to driving around at night in his awesome car while Phil Collins, other shamelessly 80s music, or the iconic anthem of manpain, Crockett's Theme, played in the background. (Played by actor Don Johnson.) Ricardo "Rico" Tubbs, a street cop from NYC who came to Miami looking for revenge and stayed to ogle all the ladies in bikinis (or Crockett depending on which fans you ask).

Rico's love interests also tended to die or turn evil, but he was given to anger and suicidal undercover missions rather than brooding. (Played by actor Philip Michael Thomas.) The boss: Martin Castillo, a man of few words and a shadowy past fighting opium trafficking in Southeast Asia. Unlike many boss characters on cop shows, Castillo racked up quite a body count, including (among many others) machine gun-wielding KGB agents he killed with a katana. (No, really.) Castillo had many old friends who appeared over the course of the series, most of whom were either presumed dead, out to get him, or secretly Communist spies. Strangely, despite his equally tragic backstory and personal life, Castillo didn't produce nearly as much manpain as Crockett, perhaps due to a lack of personal theme music. (Played by actor Edward James Olmos .) Crockett (left) and Castillo (right) on the cover of Dyad #18 The comic relief: Stan Switek and Larry Zito. The babes: Gina Navarro Calabrese and Trudy Joplin, like most female vice cops, at least on tv, spent most of the series dressed as hookers. Hookers with guns.

Minor Characters MV had many recurring characters and a number of characters who only appeared once but who are featured in numerous fanworks. Some of these include: Castillo's old friend CIA agent Jack Gretsky, his wife, and his son Marty snitches Izzy Moreno and Noogie Lamont Castillo's ex-wife, May Ying, and her current husband Internal Affairs officer Ben Schroeder Crockett's herds of canonical love interests: Caroline, Theresa, Caitlin, etc. police officers Evan Freed and Mike Orgell Crockett's pet alligator Elvis (yes, really) I Can't Believe It's Not Fanon This would be fanon... if it weren't Miami Vice. Like all shows featuring undercover cops, Vice had a lot of subtexty, over-the-top episodes with characters undercover as all manner of lowlife scum in locations ranging from prisons to tropical islands. Many parts of canon so closely resemble fanfic (frequently even or perhaps especially slash badfic ) that new fans are surprised to discover they aren't fanon. Examples of I-Can't-Believe-It's-Not-Fanon parts of Miami Vice include: Evan: This episode deals with homophobia and closeted officers.

It's so full of slashy subtext that even straight fanboys have been known to comment on the hoyay . Golden Triangle Parts 1&2, Bushido, Duty & Honor/The Savage, The Rising Sun of Death, Heart of Night: These episodes contain most of what we know about Castillo's backstory. Cracked.com's review refers to them as the "Super Ninja Castillo" episodes. [1] Castillo speaks four or five languages [2] and can kick the asses of Thai assassins barehanded. Machine guns are no match for his skills with a katana. Like Thomas Magnum and everyone else on tv in the 80's, he has a presumed-dead Asian wife. Also a presumed dead best friend. The Burnett Saga: The Burnett saga [3] takes every amnesia trope dear to fanfiction and soap opera writers alike and makes them all more over the top (and slashier !). On top of the amnesia, this arc comes with a hearty dose of MPDJK and Partner Betrayal . There's also an assassination in a gay bathhouse. And then there's the panther...

Cooling Effect: Actions of Fans and TPTB A letterzine in this fandom, Vice Line , was shut down after one issue, and some fans believe that the actions of fellow fans regarding contact with TPTB had a cooling effect on quantity of fanworks: It happened in Miami Vice and not about slash. Jealous fans sent letterzines to Michael Mann who promptly threatened to sue them. In the world I live in a letterzine, which is a discussion of a show, is protected by the first amendment but not in Michael Mann's world. He came down so hard on the fans it had a chilling affect on all Vice publishing and it is the main reason there never was that much published in Miami Vice fic when it was such a popular show. [4]

Question: In which TV series did the characters Crockett and Tubbs appear?
Answer: Miami Vice