Miami Vice: Season One

The most stylish TV show of the 1980s, writer/producer Michael Mann's Miami Vice redefined the cop show forever with its deliberate incorporation of the latest fashions and music into gritty and uncompromising stories involving drug pushers, prostitution rings, gun runners, and a fair number of crooked law-enforcement officers. The 1984 pilot episode found smooth but tough Sonny Crockett (Don Johnson) teaming up with NYPD detective Rico Tubbs (Philip Michael Thomas), who has come south to investigate murders tied to a Colombian drug lord. Rico stays on and rounds out a squad that also includes Larry Zito (John Diehl), Gina Calabrese (Saundra Santiago), and the quietly forceful Lt. Castillo (Edward James Olmos). The first-season episodes were chockfull of well-known stars and character actors, including Pam Grier, John Turturro, Jimmy Smits, Ed O'Neill, Michael Madsen, Ving Rhames, and Sylvia Miles, to name just a few. Musician Glenn Frey, whose songs often turned up in the show's soundtrack, became the first of several recording artists to appear in a dramatic role. First season highlights include the two-part “Calderone's Return,” which finds Tubbs working behind the scenes to protect Crockett and his relatives from an Argentinean assassin; “Give a Little, Take a Little,” which stunned viewers by pushing Gina into a compromising position when her undercover pose of a prostitute aroused suspicion; and “Smuggler's Blues,” which had Crockett and Tubbs being recruited by the DEA to pose as drug runners to flush out a vigilante believed to be working within the bureau. Of course, TV has grown up a lot in the 20 years since Miami Vice made its first big splash in the primetime pond, but this groundbreaking series still has a lot to recommend it--not the least of which is Jan Hammer's unforgettable theme music. Offering all 22 episodes on three flipper discs with so-so transfers, DVD extras include five featurettes roughly totaling a half hour. Highly recommended. (E. Hulse)