One of my all-time favorite TV shows, Miami Vice, is getting the massive blockbuster remake treatment, with Joseph Kosinski following up F1 with Miami Vice ’85. While it’s not the first Miami Vice movie (series EP Michael Mann gave it a slick update twenty years ago), it’s the first to seemingly treat the original show with reverence, with the filmmakers retaining the eighties setting. It’s going to be a huge movie, with Austin Butler and Michael B. Jordan taking over for Don Johnson and Philip Michael Thomas as Sonny Crockett and Rico Tubbs.
As a result, contemporary audiences may want to dig into the show that started it all, but it has to be acknowledged that people used to modern TV may not know where to begin with a show that ran well over 100 episodes. As much as I love the show, as I explained in my video rundown of it, while often brilliant, Miami Vice was also frustratingly inconsistent. The first two seasons are mostly great, while season three has a few solid episodes. You can skip seasons four and five. Given the demands of network TV and the need to fill seasons with twenty-four episodes, a lot of episodes are filler and not all that great. Once you get into the show, you’ll probably find something to like about pretty much every episode, but for an audience interested in getting into the show for the first time, I’ve compiled a list of five episodes to start with—which should be watched in order.
This is the episode that started it all, with it being a pilot film for the eventual series that introduces us to our two cop heroes: Sonny and Rico. We first meet Philip Michael Thomas’ Rico Tubbs, a New York City cop who’s stalking a drug lord, Calderone, who we learn murdered his cop brother. He crosses paths with Don Johnson’s vice cop, Sonny Crockett, who poses as an underworld figure named Sonny Burnett, which gives him access to designer clothes, a Ferrari, and whatever else he needs to fit in. Any Miami Vice binge has to start here, and for a first episode, it’s pretty slick and assured. By the time you get to the classic “In the Air Tonight” driving sequence, you’ll be hooked. Rumor has it that the film is going to be largely based on this episode.
Originally a two-part episode, this was about as serialized as the show got, with the villain from episode one, Calderone, returning. This is an important episode in that it kills off Sonny and Rico’s original boss, Lou, paving the way for an important addition to the show: Edward James Olmos as Lt. Castillo. This is one of the episodes where executive producer Michael Mann’s style really takes effect, with some nifty pieces of action, including the now-famous use of a “Mozambique drill” by real-life shooting expert Jim Zubiena, who plays a deadly hitman.
Another two-parter, this one is more inconsistent than the others in that it initially aired as two separate episodes (with two different directors) before being retconned into a two-parter for reruns and later releases of the show. The first half-hour of the first episode is weak, but it kicks into high gear as the episode comes to an end, and part two is an all-timer (it’s also the only episode where Mann has a writing credit). This episode gave us a lot of insight into Edward James Olmos’ Castillo and his history as a shady DEA operator working in Southeast Asia during the Vietnam War. It’s a tour-de-force episode for Olmos.
Arguably the greatest Miami Vice episode ever, this is a nuanced, dark, character-based episode for Don Johnson’s Sonny, who has to revisit a painful chapter from his early career as a cop when he runs afoul of a deep-cover cop, the titular Evan (played by future Boy Meets World star William Russ), with whom he shares a shameful secret. Johnson’s Sonny was never a superhero. He was a flawed, often troubled man, and this is what made him so electrifying in an era when many TV heroes were vanilla. The only catch is that this is the hardest episode to actually see, as it’s not streaming due to rights issues over the heavy use of Peter Gabriel music in the episode. You can only see this one on physical media.
By the time this episode was shot, Miami Vice mania had begun, and you can tell because it seems like the network, NBC, started throwing a lot more money into the show, with this being the season two premiere. It has tons of stunt casting, including Gene Simmons and the return of Pam Grier as Tubbs’ love interest, Valerie, and wall-to-wall pop hits, including Glenn Frey’s “You Belong to the City,” which was written for the show. It’s a fun episode, although sadly it was about midway through season two that the show’s creative decline started, with Mann taking a backseat as he prepped his film Manhunter and moved on to another series, Crime Story.
If you watch—and like—all these episodes, other great ones include season one’s “Smuggler’s Blues,” which had its premise reworked by Mann into the 2006 Miami Vice film; “Lombard,” which has a great performance by Dennis Farina; season two’s “Bushido,” which is another awesome Castillo episode; “Out Where the Buses Don’t Run” (which many people think is the all-time greatest episode); and season three’s “When Irish Eyes Are Crying,” which has a young Liam Neeson as an unusually sympathetic villain.
Which episodes are your faves? Let us know in the comments.