On Air: NBC at Friday 10:00 PM (60 min.)
September 16, 1984 – July 26, 1989
NBC Police Drama – 111 Episodes
Episodes Guide: Season 1 Season 2
Season 3 Season 4 Season 5
Miami Vice earned its nickname of “MTV cops” through its liberal use of popular rock songs and a pulsating, synthesized music track created by Jan Hammer. Segments of it closely resembled music videos–as quickly edited images, without dialogue, were often accompanied by contemporary hits such as Tina Turner’s “What’s Love Got to Do With It?” As with music-oriented films such as Flashdance (1983) and Footloose (1984), Miami Vice was a program that could not have existed before MTV began popularizing the music video in 1981.
Originally aired from 1984 to 1989, Miami Vice incorporated both current music and musicians (e.g., Phil Collins, Ted Nugent, Glenn Frey, Sheena Easton), dressed its undercover police officers in stylish fashions, and imbued every frame with an aura of moral decay. It succeeded in making previous police programs, such as Dragnet, look stodgy and old-fashioned.
In Miami Vice, the city of Miami was virtually a character in its own right. Each week’s episode began with a catalogue of Miami iconography: sun-baked beach houses, Cuban-American festivals, women in bikinis, and postmodern, pastel-colored cityscapes. Executive producer Michael Mann insisted that significant portions of the program be shot in Miami, which helped …