At the height of its pomp, Miami Vice was inescapable. Even Sesame Street had a segment called Miami Mice featuring two rodents in spiffy suits. Thanks to countless parodies, the show’s cheesy signifiers have endured: the pastel-and-neon palette, the rolled-up jacket sleeves, Jan Hammer’s 80s electronic score. The sombre 2006 movie version is seen as the more serious work because, unlike its TV forebear, it did not feature a pet alligator named Elvis. But dig deeper into the original – there’s a repackaged collection of all five seasons released this month – and there’s a surprising amount of grit.
Miami Vice debuted on NBC in 1984, arriving in the UK on BBC1 in 1985. Creator Anthony Yerkovich, who had worked on cop show Hill Street Blues, was fascinated by the similarities between the melting pot of Miami and historical ports such as Casablanca – centres of sinful trade and conspicuous consumption.
After learning of a loophole that permitted authorities to redeploy assets seized from criminals, Yerkovich built his show around the idea, giving undercover vice cops James “Sonny” Crockett and Ricardo “Rico” Tubbs a lifestyle as decadent as their targets.
As played by Don Johnson, Crockett was a gregarious local who clearly enjoyed his departmentally approved playboy cover story. His partner, Tubbs, (Philip Michael Thomas) had a tougher edge, befitting a street-smart New York cop relocated to sun-drenched Florida. Their wardrobe, watches and even some of their weapons were the bounty of previous busts, helping them foil shady arms sales, infiltrate prostitution rings and take down endless drug dealers.
Most episodes start mid-action, leaving viewers scrambling to catch up. Amid the shootouts, surveillance operations and tense face-to-faces with bad guys, there are also long, often dialogue-free montages with the stylised cinematography and free-floating logic of high-end music videos. These moody interludes were established in the pilot, where Crockett guns his Ferrari Spyder through the twilight while Tubbs grimly loads a shotgun to the strains of Phil Collins’s In the Air Tonight.
Viewed three decades on, one of the most striking things about Miami Vice is that almost every episode features a recognisable guest star. There are pre-fame appearances from Benicio del Toro, Viggo Mortensen, Ben Stiller, John Leguizamo and dozens more. A pre-Moonlighting Bruce Willis turns up as an arms dealer with a sideline in domestic abuse, while a very young Helena Bonham Carter plays one of Crockett’s string of girlfriends.
Every second baddie seems to be a musician, including Frank Zappa, Miles Davis, Gene Simmons, Isaac Hayes, even Phil Collins himself as a gameshow conman. This endless string of cameos – some good, some bad, all entertaining – can’t quite overshadow the streak of fatalism that runs through the series. Despite their wisecracking, Crockett and Tubbs seem convinced they’ll never win the drug war, no matter how many dealers they bust. Many episodes have a far more downbeat ending than the movie.
The later seasons lean heavily on nonsensical plots and recycled baddies. In season four, Tubbs grows a distracting beard. In season five, Crockett suffers amnesia. But for the first three years, Miami Vice earned its now-renowned status.
It doesn’t just cast a shadow over every subsequent TV show set in Miami, from Dexter to Nip/Tuck. With its cinematic sensibility, charming anti-heroes and existential montages, it paved the way for our golden age of deluxe cable TV.
