After reading the posts in recent column ( Poll: Best Bond (non-Connery edition), I thought about my favorite series, Miami Vice. I loved it for the camera work, decor/sets, clothes and music, but there were some elements that I found unlikely or implausible, such as in first(?) episode where Tubbs is introduced. How can a MYC guy never been south of NJ know how to run a speedboat and more importantly, able to navigate a narrow, crowded marina where he’s never been. Or why wear a double-breasted jacket in Florida’s tropical heat, AND carry a sawed-off shotgun inside, which would be difficult to remove before he got shot. Then there’s Sonny, who’s supposedly a connected underworld operative, yet never gets arrested during busts; add in the idea that all these gangsters are probably serving time at same joint and presumably will talk to each other, and note all their busts came when Sunny was involved and is not there at time of bust and they would put 2 and 2 together, and warn their buddies on the outside, blowing Sonny’s cover.
The there’s the actor Marttin Ferrero, who was assassin killed pilot episode (sorry if my memory is off), but then returns later as recurring huckster Izzy. And if I recall (correctly?) didn’t Dennis Farina appear as 2 different characters. Oh well, as LSL Guy observed in Bond post, just relax and enjoy the show, don’t think about it. Has anyone else noticed any more anomalies in the series?
As I remember, Miami Vice was hugely influential when it first ran, for the men’s fashions, for the music and the overall style of the show. I think Michael Mann got a lot of credit for that and it also shows in Crime Story, which is what he did next (and which starred Dennis Farina). And I think when Miami Vice first premiered, the city of Miami itself was somewhat downtrodden but the show contributed to its revival and being seen as a cool place to visit and to live in.
The series was conceived under the high concept pitch from NBC head of entertainment Brandon Tartikoff as a two word memo which read “MTV Cops”. There was never anything remotely realistic in it, from Miami-Dade Police detectives traveling to Nicaragua to conduct a drug deal to flush out a DEA mole to being sent to New York to hunt down a gang of brutal Colombian drug dealers who nobody apparently wants arrested because they make so much money and with whom they get into a gunfight in World Trade Center Plaza where they are conducting the world’s most public drugs-for-cash exchange and Crockett manages to take down a helicopter by unloading a full magazine from his 10mm Bren Ten, which is a stretch both that he could do catastrophic damage that a pilot couldn’t autorotate safely down from and that he actually managed to get spare mags for that pistol at a time when many of them were being delivered without magazines at all. It was all very stylish in a way that executive producer and acclaimed film director Michael Mann became known for (although he’s not credited with actually directing any episodes of the series) but the show didn’t make a lick of sense, and even for the crime wave that Miami was going through in the ‘Eighties the show racked up a weekly body count and enough explosions that would have justified invoking a state of emergency and declaring martial law.
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Was that Ferrari that Crockett drove standard police-issue, or did he purchase that for himself on a cop’s salary? I don’t remember.
Wasn’t the car courtesy of asset forfeiture laws? In other words, it was seized from drug dealers or other criminals.
The first one was a Daytona-lookalike kit car built on a C3 chassis, so in theory a cop could have bought it. The Type F110 ‘Testarossa’ was provided to the production by Ferrari (they actually provided a ‘hero’ car and one that was used for interior filming, and the production bought a Pantera-based replica as the stunt car which is pretty obvious due to the ride height and body proportions). At a base price of $135k when new, it would have been pretty steep on a cop’s salary even if he was on the grift. The in-universe explanation is that it was a forfeiture acquisition but you would think that Dade County would have better use for the revenue at auction rather than letting this pretty ineffectual detective with a cover that somehow hasn’t been broken even though he walks around all the time with a badge around his neck.
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both the boat and car seizers
Where do I begin?
How about the extra sound effect for Sonnys Bren10, that had a little bit of howitzer and probably T-rex mixed in. Once you notice it, you can’t not notice it, and laugh. Part of the “making everything extra bad-ass” period of television, aka “this goes to 11”.
How about Castillo, especially his ultra-clean desk. Did he ever do any work? His management style consisted of, and I quote, “Do it”.
The Ferrari, as noted, was a forfeiture, but the sail boat, and the cigarette boat, both appeared to be Crockett’s. Worse was his watchdog, that unneeded alligator. Stupid idea for a pet, especially in his line of work.
Misogyny was still thriving in the 80’s. Crockett and Tubbs can shoot any number of people, sleep with anybody, have babies with sisters of Colombian drug lords, and it is no problem, but Gina sleeps with Liam Neeson and it’s a major emotional event. Trudy shoots someone and she can’t cope. At least they gave them something to do.
On the good side, it may not have made the most sense, but Definitely Miami was a fine episode, even with a pre-Magaturd Nugent. I could have done without that G Gordon liddy worship episode though.
Smuggler’s Blues was a stupid plot with a “Skyfall” failure of planning. They KNOW the loved one of the smuggler (Trudy, undercover) is going to be kidnapped, but does anyone watch her? HELLO! She nearly gets blown to bits.Stupid!
Miami Vice wasn’t about the logic or even, really, the story. It wasn’t meant to be real or logical, ir was a dream version of Miami. It was about how it felt. Mann’s stuff is about atmosphere and emotion, about humans in an unreal and often inhuman world. A common theme of his work, and it’s very true in Miami Vice, is people being trapped in inescapable roles and pointless cycles.
You try sleeping with Liam Neeson and not have it be a major emotional event.
Can I sleep with Gina instead? I promise to retain my composure.
I want to sing the praises of “Shadow in the Dark”, which is a sideways remake of Mann’s Manhunter, with Crockett in the Will Graham role. It’s almost better than the film.
I loved the revelation of “Out Where the Buses Don’t Run”. I should have seen it coming, but I didn’t.
Viking Bikers From Hell may not have lived up to its title, but what a title!
I remember one episode, must have been first season, where not only didn’t they roll credits until like ten minutes in, but there was no dialog all that time. All atmosphere! I’d never seen anything like that on TV at the time.
OTOH, the story arc where Crocket gets a bimp on the noggin and becomes Sonny Burnett and takes over the drug trade, well, they could have left that in the dream.
And that is before we consider the episode with the deceased Rastafarian floating out to sea in the final scene in his coffin/regeneration pod.
The most telling of the time episode was the first season episode that dealt with the underground pornographers who are openly bragging about filming child porn for the black market but the police are FAR more interested in just getting them on drug charges.
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TV shows usually go to shit at some point, after all, but Miami Vice was, at the time, a remarkably original show. It was shockingly different.
Great song though.
As musicians go, Glenn Frey wasn’t that bad an actor.
You should remove this from your list of nitpicking, because it was perfectly normal for episodic TV to recycle actors into different characters. Just in that era alone, Dennis Franz played a dirty cop in five episodes of Hill Street Blues, and then reappeared two years later to play a sleazy but not dirty cop for 44 episodes. Jerry Orbach first appeared as a defense attorney in Law and Order before coming back as Lenny Briscoe while S. Epatha Merkerson was in an early episode before showing up as Lt. Van Buren in season four. Christa Miller played two different characters on Seinfeld. Tim Ware played four different characters on In the Heat of the Night. The list is almost endless.
how true. maybe best example for me was Perry Mason, where there seems to be ensemble cast of maybe 12 or so were interchangeable; even the guy who became Lt Tragg initially appeared as con man
and don’t forget when Gina is undercover as whore and actually has to sleep with “client” and then emotionally upset