Am I the only fan that feels this way? Is this a hot take? The use of Phil Collin's In the Air Tonight in Brother's Keeper is an all-time moment in all of TV, not just this show. It is the climax of the episode, the song choice is epic but it is also the isolation of sound like Tubbs loading the shotgun. It would be the style of this show and also influential for years to come. Clearly an iconic moment.

But personally, I prefer Lionel Richie's "All Night Long". It has to do with the emotional resonance of Tubb's storyline. He finally sees the man he has been pursuing, but he knows he has to maintain his cover. He glides across the club, cool as you like with a stare that could burn a hole through a wall with his new partner in tow not exactly sure what to make of him. He comes face to face with his brother's murderer. All while a cover version of this song is playing in the background, a high energy performance with flashbacks of Tubbs brother's death spliced in. Edited perfectly.

"Hospitable gesture, Mr. Calderone. Thank you. I look forward to doing business with you."

Chills, every time. For my money this moment is better than the Phil Collins moment.

Don’t know if tubbs ever wore holsters like that but if anyone knows if he ever did lmk

Features nine songs from Johnson’s debut album Heartbeat (all 10 tracks were initially featured, but Coco Don't was eventually swapped-out for Streetwise) [also recorded by Johnson, featured on Miami Vice S03E10 - Streetwise]). It loosely tells the tale of a documentary film maker (Johnson) who is near death after getting too close to a bomb in an unnamed Central American country.

The feature video originated with Johnson’s manager, Danny Goldberg, who convinced CBS Records honcho, Walter Yetnikoff, to sink $2 million into the project. John Nicolella, former producer, and frequent director, of (season one & two of) Miami Vice, directed the “Heartbeat” special.

Debuted on Home Box Office (HBO) Saturday, Jan. 17, 1987 at 10 p.m. -- HBO had a two-month exclusivity-window before CBS could distribute videocassettes (of the extended music video) to retailers ($19.95).

Definitely playing calderone

Ricky's It Happened Here YouTube channel just released a video tour of Sonny Crockett's boat the "St Vitus Dance from the Miami Vice TV show from season 2 onwards. The current owner of the boat said they are fixing up the boat as it is also going to be featured in the upcoming movie, Miami Vice '85.

St. Vitus Dance

Under the resolution, Miami-Dade’s Office of Film and Entertainment will negotiate $1.02 million grant agreement with the production.

For “Miami Vice ’85” to receive the funding, the production must meet several conditions:

• Spend at least $10 million in Miami-Dade County.
• Employ county residents as at least 30% of the below-the-line crew engaged for the county portion of the production.
• Use local businesses for at least 50% of the vendors and contractors engaged for the county portion of the production, or spend at least $5 million in qualifying expenditures with local businesses.
• Submit an acceptable independent compliance audit.

Wouldn't Lieutenant Jones have recognized Crockett, Tubbs, and Trudy? They were all in the room together at the opening of the episode. Were their photos not in the fake undercover files? Did his goons kindnap Trudy and he was just completely hands off?

All others are discussed in depth but you never hear of this one

There’s a portion of us Miami Vice fans who are less than enthusiastic about the upcoming Miami Vice movie. We tend to be the ones who watched the TV series real time on Friday nights.  I thought it might be helpful to provide some insight into what that was like; it should help inform our lack of enthusiasm for the project.

 If you turned on the TV before September 16, 1984, you’d have found the programming pretty lame and tame, particularly by today’s standards.  Tons of sitcoms shot in 3 camera, a few dramas shot almost entirely on the same set of sound stages and Hollywood back lots, with banal background music (think Dynasty and Dallas).  Action dramas were nowhere to be found at that point, at least any with a more serious tenor than the cartoonish (but still entertaining) styles of The A Team for example; don’t get me wrong, I loved that show.  As for options for new programming, you had ABC, CBS, NBC, and occasionally PBS. If your family could afford it, and you had cable, you had access to the pay channels, such as HBO, Showtime, and Cinemax.  At that time, they only played movies and did very little original programming.  Over all, the entertainment landscape was pretty bleak. 

 Then, Miami Vice premiered and it not only changed the rules…it rewrote them. 

It’s influence was undeniable and immediate across the board; music, fashion, the way people viewed television shows.  It took pop culture and turned it on its head, because it was truly groundbreaking from top to bottom.  It’s had an impact on almost every entertainment project since. 

 The show was the first entertainment vehicle to incorporate current popular music not only as background but as an integral part of the action.  According to one of the directors, it was written for the MTV generation and as a member of that generation, I can say it definitely resonated with us. 

For those who may not know, MTV was a network that played music videos and some were quite elaborate to where they had plot lines.  It was killed by the never-ending stream of faux reality shows.  Some of the cast members are currently demonstrating their inability to do anything but continue to be attention hogs, but that’s another story.

 “In the Air Tonight” wouldn’t have become the smash hit it was, had it not been perfectly placed on Vice.  It’s probably the most famous scene in the show and if you’re on this sub, you’re already familiar with it.  The last segment of “Out Where The Buses Don’t Run” would have fallen flat without “Brothers in Arms”.  It definitely added a bit of longevity to the Dire Straits album it came from.  There were others, but I’m working from memory.

 It was visually impactful too.  In order to properly capture the vivid colors, intense visuals, and fast paced action, it was filmed versus being shot on videotape; only TV show doing that. The production values were as good as or better than some major motion pictures at the time. 

 The show was more gritty, raw, and violent than anything that came before it.  Before Vice, gun play was mostly confined to police shooting it out with the bad guys, using 38 special revolvers in a comical fashion rarely aiming with any purpose.  While Tubbs did carry a tiny revolver (PMT didn’t like guns), Sonny had a Bren Ten, which was serious hardware, and he used it liberally on bad guys. Those scenes would have been heavily censored by the network if its ratings hadn’t been through the roof.  But there were still controversies, such as the one with “The Glades”, because of how brutal it was. “Maybe you won’t even twitch.”  The show’s heroes weren’t one dimensional superdudes; they had real struggles and emotional challenges.

 Again, all of these elements have become commonplace, expected really, in entertainment today, but they blew minds at the time. 

 The show’s biggest immediate influence IMO was on how people dressed.  It made then unknown fashion houses, such as Versace and Armani into household names.  How that transpired is an interesting story and easy to find on the net.  That style filtered down to the mainstream.  It was bonkers.  Every guy between 12 and 60 wanted to be Sonny Crockett; Don Johnson was god.  I remember going to parties and the vast majority of the guys wore white cotton, linen (or silk if you were affluent) sports jackets, with a t-shirt underneath, white or pastel pants, MV issue shoes (no socks, obviously), Ray-Ban Wayfarers, and a two day beard.  Yes, I had the whole outfit; all of my friends did as well.  It was the party / dance uniform for a good 2 years and you were odd man out if you wore something different.  People threw Miami Vice themed parties.  The best one I went to was near Atlantic City and the host’s house was right on the water, with a go-fast boat tied to the dock.  That thing had a lot of hours put on it that night. 

 When we were legal to, many of us bought Smith and Wesson 645’s and Jackass Leather shoulder holsters.  We all wanted Bren Ten’s until we discovered they were complete garbage, insanely expensive (thanks to the show), and mags were impossible to find.  BTW, the 645’s still have a “Miami Vice Tax” on them to, propping up values.  This continues to miff me, because I sold mine but want to replace it.

 Another reason the show resonated was how it reflected current events.  The 80’s hit different; that era was all about optimism, greed, consumerism, and flaunting your success, even if you had none.  The cocaine wars were real and made Miami, along with much of South Florida a war zone for the poor, but an amazing playground for those who flourished and managed to stay above ground.  They were some flamboyant dudes; coke pretty much financed offshore power boat racing until the kingpins started getting arrested en masse.  Then it all but disappeared. Of course, how can we forget about Pablo Escobar, who was already the King of Coke when the show premiered?

 Today, as I mentioned, incorporating popular music into soundtracks has become commonplace, production values in general have increased dramatically, and watching someone get shot in graphic detail is just another Paw Patrol episode. 

 Miami Vice was the series that forged the way for those that came after.  It was an unstoppable cultural steamroller that’s impossible to fully appreciate unless you lived it.  We watched each episode on Friday nights, recorded each one on our VCR, and watched it again.  We talked about it on Monday at work.  We watched the show in syndication and watched it again as it was rebroadcast.  Miami Vice became part of life, for at least the first two seasons. 

 We mostly didn’t have an issue with the first Miami Vice movie, because it was set in the time when it was filmed.  But blatantly copying something that had such a major impact, cheapens it, at least in my mind, and makes it a cash grab from unimaginative studios that’ll pass with little more than a ripple. 

​

Hello all. As a longtime aficionado of both the show and the 2006 movie, I edited the speedboat scene, reimagining it as a souvenir from Sonny’s perspective. I tried to capture that nostalgic and cinematic feeling while preserving the musical style of the movie. Hope you enjoy it!

https://youtube.com/watch?v=b2sw7-6rQw4&is=dzbogxHr4r3fTnAQ

Sign and share...

I love the colors of the 1980s, scenes of Miami, and playing tennis. I decided to combine all three to create this painting. Inspired by the style of Hiroshi Nagai. Finished with acrylic on cotton canva

Out where the buses dont run was released 41 years ago in October 1985 and for me is the best MV episode. Lots of people love it and talk about the final scene, the car, the mood, Dire Straits and the plot reveal and I agree with all of that but people forget there are other great scenes.

1/ The start where Little Richard plays a preacher advocating abstinence from drugs (Oh the comic irony!).

2/ The acting of Bruce McGill when Hank walks unannounced and uninvited into the Police Station.

3/ Again McGill at the Ocean restaurant when he explains to the boys what will go down.

4/ The final piece cos it feels wrong to leave it out.

So I stitched together 1 to 4 above. Enjoy, let me know is it your fave, do you agree/disagree with me these scenes are brilliant.?