AllMovie

When NBC head honcho Brandon Tartikoff demanded a flashy weekly series with "MTV Cops," executive producer Michael Mann responded with Miami Vice. The stars were Don Johnson as Sonny Crockett and Philip Michael Thomas as Ricardo Tubbs, members of Miami's Organized Crime Bureau. In the Miami Vice two-hour pilot, telecast September 16, 1984, Florida native Crockett and New York transplant Tubbs team for the first time; their mutual target is a nasty drug lord who has killed two people who were near and dear to the detectives. Gregory Sierra (replaced in the series by Edward James Olmos) costars as Crockett and Tubbs' superior. A triumph of style over substance, Miami Vice was for many years the most popular action series on network TV; it ran until July of 1989.