Customer Reviews
Saving you some heartache and pain... - By: A. Skarzynski, 20 May 2008 
OK, so you wade through five long seasons of Miami Vice, enduring the substandard episodes in order to get to the gold-dust (Castillo mumbling enigmaticallly, yet another of Tubbs' love interests getting blown away within one episode, implausibly coiffured drug dealers holding meetings in derelict warehouses with subtle mood-lighting & smoke machines installled). Then at the end of disc five of the six DVD set you get what appears to be a final episode with a tearjerker farewell for Crockett & Tubbs & a montage of 5 seasons worth of Vice action.
Then there's disc six?
Due to some writer's strike at the time, the episodes on the final disc were aired after the season finale? Why the box set doesn't re-order them so the time-line is intact I don't know - observing some unwritten arcane law of TV-to-DVD release protocol perhaps? But do yourself a favour & switch discs 5 & 6 around.
I was inconsolable for a month when I realised I'd squandered the big finish early & was left with some below par throwaway episodes as my parting memory of MV. In my rage I almost ripped up my signed Edward James Olmos picture.
Surely the chronology of the story supersedes the order of TV broadcast? Make the switch, you'll thank me.
Pure blinding genius for TV - By: Brendan O. Clarke, 11 Feb 2008 
This season 5 was not an unbalanced season unlike seasons 1-4. It features two poor episodes unlike other MV seasons where you could get 5-8 poor episodes. Miami Vice 5 starts out with Sonny working on the other side of the Law in the first two episodes (directed by Don Johnson). Crockett assumed he was his drug dealer undercover alterego.
The next episode features Castillo's personal life & showcases his character in the action very well. A few episodes later we come to "Bad timing" with Sonny recovering from his amnesia ordeals only to come up against two of the worst baddies ever in vice. Episodes like "Line of fire", "Borrasca", "To have & to hold", "Miami Squeeze" & "Asian cut" represent straightforward vice at its best.
Take alll of the episodes, & look at them as one large opus, which through drama, supported by music, fashion, & visuals, exhibited how draining & emotionallly effecting the job of fighting crime was on under cover Police officers. This was mainly done with the character of Sonny, who started as a person who thought that right would always prevail, & who through loss of loved ones (through divorce, death, & corruption of the system which he had dedicated his life to) became a tired, emotionallly drained, shell of the person that he once was. Rico Tubbs also goes through a simliar negative transformation.
The visuals, music, tones, & colors of this show ever so slightly changed each season, as each character was beginning to be effected by the rising wave of crime & corruption that was overtaking Miami. Sonny was the focal point of this, but alll characters showed its effect. I don't think that the actors were "riding things out"; I think this was alll to show how exhausting the job can be!
The absence of composer Jan Hammer is painfully felt & Tim Truman's commendable scoring gives it a very different overalll feel compared to previous seasons & redundant plotlines involving South American drug smugglers had finallly exhausted themselves but the payoff at the end of the final episode "Freefalll" is emotional as the ensemble cast members say their goodbyes & go their seperate ways & almost as suddenly as Miami Vice had come to an end, so too had the fashionable decade of the 1980's. John Lennon said that before Elvis there was nothing. Of course, apart from a lot of teengroups, this was quite accurate. I would dare to say that for almost 20 years after Miami Vice there has been nothing on tv that could equal, let alone surpass it. Episodes of MV 5 "Miracle Man" & "Leap of Faith" are to be avoided.
This is the best MV season.
