Houstondon

I read John Crichton's DVD review of Miami Vice: Season Five at http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/read.php?ID=29803 and...
I think you made a lot of very valid points, even trying too hard to be nice when it was clearly bugging you at how lame your once favored show had sunk into the Stygian depths. Good job!

iconoclasm

i tried watching s1 and s2 of miami vice and it was so underwhelming. I guess i have been spoiled by shows like the wire and law and order. I like that the show usually had excellent guest stars, but it seemed like the crux of most of the shows involved shootouts, blowing up a ship, or don johnson gettin freaky with a hot chick. I would much rather watch old episodes of homicide crime in the streets.

Miami vice was a groundbreaking show for its time, and i give it props.

nateman

Miami Vice was a show of it’s time & it definitely (in my opinion) doesn’t hold up well today as Michael Mann’s other produced series, Crime Story.

I think iconoclasm pretty much nailed my current opinion on Miami Vice, it’s underwhelming. Sure it was groundbreaking & cutting edge but all in all it was a pretty dull crime series if you look past all of the fancy camera work & MTV generation music.

All Crime Dramas are repetitive to a point but Miami Vice stands out more then a lot of others. I wouldn’t compare it too Homicide: Life on the Street because HLOTS is a totally different show & it would be more comparable to Hill Street Blues. Same with Law & Order, I wouldn’t try & compare it too Miami Vice either.

I find Hawaii Five-O, another show that was groundbreaking for it’s time but it's still as entertaining, if not more so than when it originally aired in syndication. Unlike Miami Vice.

Anyways, I thought John Crichton’s review was excellent & I agree that Universal deserves props for keeping all of the original music intact for Miami Vice.

islandclaws

I'm an avid Miami Vice fan and still plan on picking up the 5th season to complete my collection, regardless of how weak it may be.

However, I don't think you can say that Miami Vice was dull without the camera work and MTV music because that's what made the show what it was. If you take key elements away from any good show then it would hardly have a leg to stand on. Those key elements, and Mann's guiding hand, are what made the show the phenomenon that it became and, in many ways, still is. Sure, the show may have lost it's charm after the first two stellar seasons, but it could still be a helluva lot of fun to watch.

Houstondon

KC, I think that was part of the point; the show relied on the style of the editing and music over any sort of substance so over the five year run, it got progressively weaker. It didn't help that the writing was never particularly good or that the chemistry between the actors dropped off considerably either; all points that John covered very nicely. In terms of television shows that followed, it definitely influenced later shows but by season five, those other shows were much better but you make some good points about it.