__q// g Time In This week’s television Edited by Matt Pomroy TV listings Freyja Tasci selling out on tour and The Daily Mailwas Miami Vice’s far-reaching obsessed with Princess Diana… Alright, maybe things weren’t that different – but influence on the 80s Miami Vicereally wasfresh. MTV had launched three years FASHION earlier; by now it was a phenomenon, The popularity of pastel shades for men and that would be the jumping off point in the 80s was largely a result of this for Miami Vice. Brandon Tartikoff, the series. Don Johnson and Philip Michael NBC executive (who had already given Thomas would wear up to eight different us Knight Rider, The A-Team and Hill outfits in each episode, with pastel Street Blues, among others) wanted pinks, blues and greens being used to a new, hip, cop series and sent out match the Art Deco architecture of the a memo that simply said ‘MTV Cops’. Tune in this week and you’ll see he location. The idea was down to producer got just that. The use of music in the Michael Mann (who later directed films series is key, to the point where at times such as Heat, Ali, Collateral and the it’s hard to tell if it’s a cop drama or 2006 Miami Vice film) and he can largely a music video, but people loved it. The take credit for many of the huge fashion soundtrack album for the series spent 12 trends during the 80s. weeks at number one in America and is Also popularised by the show was still the most successful TV soundtrack wearing slip-on shoes without socks, of all time. Accordingly, the detective Ray-Ban Wayfarer shades (whose sales duo who would front the series were doubled), T-shirts under suits and specifically cast and dressed to look designer stubble. The latter came about like they were in a music video. The plots usually involved Sonny after Don Johnson spent the night with Crockett (Don Johnson) and Ricardo a real vice squad to help understand the Tubbs (Philip Michael Thomas) role. He came into a production meeting cracking down on drug smugglers, vice early the next morning straight from and prostitution. But along with the a stakeout and had heavy stubble. stylised glamour and gun battles it did The producers decided that this was look at these issues is a slightly wider exactly how an undercover vice cop social context – although it’s hardly a should look. deep, multi-layered series like The Wire. That said, it’s well worth watching MUSIC the pilot episode if only for one particular scene. Crockett and Tubbs The soundtrack albums of music from are driving in a Ferrari Daytona Spyder the series were so popular, record though a wet Miami at night on their companies would make a huge effort to way to a showdown with drug dealers. get their musicians’ songs used on the They’re in silence – aside from the show. It was one of the first high-profile sound of guns being loaded – while a examples of product placement with soundtrack of Phil Collins’ ‘In The Air music that we now see commonly on Tonight’ plays over the top for a full TV, adverts, in films and on computer three minutes and 20 seconds. It’s near games. Musicians were also given perfect. The shots of the car’s wheel, acting parts in the series including Phil the moody looks and the reflection on Collins, Glen Frey, Sheena Easton and the wet streets would be commonplace Of Vice and men in the series. But more significantly, many more. it could be argued, that this scene is the The theme tune went to number one If there was one cop series up the Sinclair Spectrum 48k for point where the 80s started. Obviously in the charts and even the incidental a few rounds of Horace Goes Skiing. not in terms of the date, or even in terms music used was notable, with one that summed up the 80s, Accordingly, if you tune in and watch of many things that shaped the decade, instrumental piece from the first series, it had to be Miami Vice– Miami Vice, you’ll probably find it such as Ronald Reagan becoming ‘Crockett’s Theme’ by Jan Hammer, clichéd and kitsch. But the reason you’ll President, but at least in the way being released as a single and reaching and from this week it’s being think that is largely because this series that rent-a-quotes on retrospective number one. re-screened on MBC Action. created what would become clichés in television programmes reminisce about future. Its influence was vast – not just it. This is the start of the 80s that is most FILM AND TELEVISION But far from just being loved by people who grew up during within the world of television but right It was a huge starting place for many another cop series, it was across global culture. At the time, it was that time. The looks, the fashion, the cutting edge and very much central to the imagery and the glitz. actors that would go on to big things Time In hugely influential in shaping zeitgeist of the decade that spawned it. A year later, one of the directors told in the 80s and beyond. If you watch the way the decade looked When Miami Vice first aired in 1984 Time magazine that ‘the show is written the series you’ll see very early career the world was a very different place: for an MTV audience, which is more appearances from the likes of Steve – both on and off TV. The Republican President of America interested in images, emotions and Buscemi, Stanley Tucci, Ving Rhames, Words Matt Pomroy was calling for weapons of mass energy than plot and character and Liam Neeson, Viggo Mortensen, Bruce destruction to be banned, while words.’ This is pretty much a spot-on Willis, Ed O’Neill, Wesley Snipes, Ian simultaneously having the world’s summation of the series. While it’s fairly McShane, Bill Paxton, Julia Roberts, biggest arsenal at his fingertips; there shallow, it would be one of the most Melanie Griffith, John Turturro, Chris Television programmes from the 80s was political controversy ahead of the influential series ever created (see panel Rock, Ben Stiller, Lou Diamond Phillips, are rarely as good as you remember Summer Olympics; England failed to on the right) and as well as having a Michael Madsen, Dennis Farina, Terry them being, if indeed, you remember qualify for the European Championships huge lasting effect on television – higher them being any good at all. More often football tournament; a new Indiana production values, camera angles, O’Quinn, Kyra Sedgwick, Benicio Del than not, when you see them again after Jones film was on the way; the music stereo sound, etc. – it would go on to Toro and more. Almost every episode is a 20 years they seem horribly dated, industry was predicting doom and become one of the defining cultural game of spot the future star. If you count unsophisticated and vastly inferior to gloom because people were copying touchstones for the decade.• all the guest appearances in all five what we have today. It’s like unplugging music off their mates instead of buying Miami Vice starts on March 3rd on seasons, it’s hard to think of a TV series Halo 3 on your Xbox360 and cranking it; Duran Duran and Madonna were MBC Action at 6pm. that can boast a better collective cast. February 28 – March 6 2008 Time Out Dubai 109.