Anyone here want to comment on one of the style-setting series of the mid-to-late 1980's? Don Johnson became a TV superstar when he took on the role of Miami undercover detective James "Sonny" Crockett (a character name first used for a racist killer in Hill Street Blues, btw.) Philip Michael Thomas (would you cast an actor with three first names?) was New York cop Ricardo Tubbs, hot on the hunt for drug kingpin Calderone, his brother's killer. I caught some of the original pilot when NBC repeated it last night, and in 22 years, it hasn't lost any of its intensity. The extensive use of popular music was one of the series' signatures, and Phil Collins became one of the biggest music stars of the 1980's on the basis of his 1981 hit "In The Air Tonight" being associated with the series. (Personally, I can't disassociate the song from the scene when Crockett and Tubbs are riding through the Miami streets in the {ersatz} Ferrari Daytona, to try and get Calderone.) The music, the clothes, the cars. I think the upcoming film, even though it's being directed by Michael Mann, has a hard act to live up to. The series is being rerun on the Sleuth cable channel, and it is also run on TV Land.

Here's an examination of the urban legend that the late NBC exec Brandon Tartikoff got the basic idea of this show by writing down two words - "MTV Cops".

The series is now seen on Cozi-TV. It's available on cable, or as a digital sub-channel on one of the Comcast/NBC-Universal owned channels.