Miami Vice: Season One Creator: Anthony Yerkovich, Executive Producer: Michael Mann Universal 2005 (1984-1985) The same year Van Halen released 1984, Miami Vice was forcing all kinds to relinquish their Friday nights to DTs James "Sonny" Crockett and Ricardo "Rico" Tubbs. More than two decades later, both are still widely sniffed up as pop culture references, albeit with the usual tired, Mo Rocca-esque smartass quips about the Eighties. "People in stucco houses shouldn't throw quiche." - Crockett The truth is "the look" of the Eighties that is so gaudily stranded on and synonymous with each of these works was almost instinctive, and never quite intruded on their core successes: beneath shimmering, mesh-y façades were one of the best rock albums ever conceived and possibly the best cop/action show ever televised. Revisiting or, most likely visiting both bring jaded realizations: What the hell happened to confidence in performances and not having to double-check if you were the shit every five seconds in a mirror, a blog, et al.?     Scarface might be lifestyle definitive for 99% of bullshit rap non-artists, but Miami Vice answered the question: life imitates art, and life tries waaay too hard. This series made Miami a personified dream-fulfillment: for loners like its main characters Crockett and Tubbs, for the hell-bent, for the moral and unmoral, each putting more chips on black for loyalty and temptation's thin line than actual morals (all of which were recycled and reemphasized in Michael Mann's celluloid criminal manifesto, Heat ). South Beach, the whore that she is, to paraphrase True Romance , couldn't get enough and just kept shortening her skirt 'til it was, and is, all-ass-with-zero-mystery. Mann supposedly demanded an action-drama with "no earth tones" - the man was dead serious - and thus, many allege this insight to be the birth of all that is "metro." But there's a difference between naturally buying a $3k suit and rocking one tailored carte blanche and making it your bitch. Unlike Bad Boys , where good-guy extravagance is cheaply justified via a trust fund, Crockett's necessities: a Ferrari (actually a customized Corvette - crazy), two boats, an alligator, Italian couture, is all funded by tax payers - a joke for sure - but that justification stakes ground into the heart of Miami. The life is fun, but it's still a dumb Van Halenish ice dream - Crockett is just matching up for the stakes he's against. Fire for fire. And Tubbs is no different, just cockier and allowed some length on the leash since he's from backstabber Big Apple. Actor Philip Michael Thomas is too easily passed off as a sidekick, but his old flame in the first season is Pam Grier in her prime, the guy pulls out the illegal sawed-off like it's a bowling ball preference, and his worldliness in fine art and fine in general complement an uncanny ability to customize BK blackness into a hundred shades of exotic ethnicity. Benecio Del Toro cribbed some 'tude from Tubbs in The Usual Suspects , and together, one moonlighting, offbeat Southern gentleman and a more focused, kempt black cat seems more Pulp Fiction -y the more one marinates on the comparison after wandering through 22 episodes. The ocean-coaster of the opening credits, Jan Hammer's theme song, the way the title flicks on the neon pink, it never gets old. Characters aren't all beautiful, ol' Pineapple Face Edward James Olmos as Lieutenant Castillo is the best cornerstone for maintaining a serious, stern tone ever, even when he's the center of some Taiwanese ninja double-truck called "Golden Triangle," that feels like a skiing Fonzi being ripped by eight Great Whites, before Mann steps up the writing duties and somehow pulls it off. At its worst Vice can feel like you're watching Kickboxer 3 or Death Wish V, but the challenge is half the fun. This show is a video game hands down. Plug into 1984 , watch this on a marvelous HD flat screen with a spectacular penthouse view of Miami at six o'clock and try to equate the rush of that while sitting on your ass. It can't be done. -Hunter Stephenson (Ed. note: If you drunkenly or purposely forget to flip the first disc and go straight into the second, it's like Crockett just stiffed his ex-wife and kid forever for the beat obsession, and Castillo is suddenly the new boss man and nobody's fazed - in a way it makes the show that much more non-playful and Miami.) Back Next