Product Description

The Primetime Emmy® Award-winning series that defined a decade lives on in the must-own Complete Series gift set! Available together for the first time, this action-packed anthology allows you to revisit every powerful episode from the groundbreaking series. Go undercover with James "Sonny" Crockett (Don Johnson) and Ricardo Tubbs (Philip Michael Thomas), two of the Vice Department's coolest cops, as they take on the bad guys in Miami's steamy underworld. All the original songs are presented in 5.1 surround sound, featuring award-winning musical legends including Phil Collins, U2, Peter Gabriel, The Who, Aerosmith, Guns N' Roses, The Cure, Public Enemy and more! Each gritty, unforgettable moment of the revolutionary series is here in Miami Vice: The Complete Series.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #731 in DVD
• Brand: Universal Studios
• Released on: 2007-11-13
• Rating: Unrated
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Formats: AC-3, Box set, Color, Dolby, DVD, Full Screen, Subtitled, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Subtitled in: English
• Number of discs: 27
• Running time: 5397 minutes

Customer Reviews

The Most Seminal Cop Show in The History of Television
Despite some implausible storylines, cornball humor, and over-the-top melodrama, MIAMI VICE was the SEMINAL TV Cop Show of The 80s Me Decade. No Cop Show before it had dealt with the realities of drugs, power, corruption, and money in Multi-cultural America the way this show did. And it was FUN to watch! Created by Anthony Yerkovich and produced by famed movie director Michael Mann.

Don Johnson as James "Sonny" Crockett, Phillip Michael Thomas as Ricardo Tubbs, and Edward James Olmos as the stoic Lt. Martin Castillo, were perfect in their respective roles. If they were one thing; THEY WERE COPS! The rest of the supporting cast fit in well. As well as providing comic relief to the more serious themes of evil, vice, and crime.

Jan Hammer created one of the most recognizable themes in all of Television History as well as composing background music for nearly every episode of it's five year run. (Jan Hammer dropped out of the series towards the end. Tim Truman was chosen by Michael Mann to compose some great music for the final 22 episodes.)

Seasons Four and Five are considered the years that MIAMI VICE "jumped the shark." If you're a fan, you know where you stand. I love them all. Even the hilarious THE BIG THAW from Season Four, with it's cryogenically frozen Reggae Star, is TOPS in my book. Fans hate this epsiode. It's one of the episodes I remember vividly from the 80s and it's a scream!

Tight and loose fitting pastel fashions. 80s New Wave, Pop, Top 40, and Reggae provided some of the cinematic background Music Video sequences for a brand new MTV Generation. Fast exotic cars, like Ferraris and Lamborghinis. They too, were characters in the show. Fast exotic car chases. Wealthy well-dressed eccentric cocaine and heroin dealers. The Miami Club Scene. Beautiful modern luxury dream homes. Fast Cigarette boats and luxury yachts. Brutal and blazing police shootouts. Cultures as diverse as Haitian, Columbian, Cuban, Asian, and Jamaican. An all inclusive cast of characters and a rich story history from the Vietnam War to the Golden Triangle. The DEA and ATF to the CIA and KGB Coldwar. From third world Afro-Caribbean Voodoo and Santeria to Japanese Bushido philosophy, this show was about the hippest thing happening in commercial Pop Culture entertainment at the time. Once the show caught on and took off, it was the first time people actually stayed home on Friday nights to watch television. My girlfriend and I were big club goers in the 80s. We stayed home quite a bit to watch it. Nothing would ever be the same in the visual medium of Television and Cinema. VICE was a TRENDSETTER.

Some of the cameos and performers include: Frank Zappa, Glenn Frey, Gene Simmons, Ted Nugent, Phil Collins, Bruce Willis, Bianca Jagger, Pam Grier, Ving Rhames, John Leguizamo, Dennis Farina, Ben Stiller, Alfred Molina, Liam Neeson, (rightwing wacko) G. Gordon Liddy, Lawrence Fishburne, Bill Paxton, Wesley Snipes, Miles Davis, Willie Nelson, Steve Buscemi, Helena Bonham Carter, Brad Dourif, Viggo Mortensen, Annette Bening, Melanie Griffith, George Takei, Ian McShane, Benicio Deltoro, Chris Rock, (Sonny's wife in later epsiodes) Sheena Easton, R. Lee Ermey, and Julia Roberts.

On to the product.

Ever wondered what happened to Sonny's pet alligator, Elvis? Individual SEASON BOX SETS are contained in a large imitation white alligator skin box with an imitation satin lining which looks hot on the shelf.

Fans that bought the individual SEASON BOX SETS complained about the double-sided DVDs being cheap, defective, or not playing correctly. Universal has always been a cheap bottom-line company. I feel your pain. Maybe Universal heard these complaints. Because THE COMPLETE SERIES episodes are on ONE-SIDED DVDs in the individual SEASON BOX SETS, and I haven't noticed any defects. I waited. Sometimes it pays to be patient.

Fans also complained about the epsiodes not being cleaned up. TRUE. They look as if they have been transferred directly from the original broadcast tapes complete with grain and scratches in some cases. You won't notice a lot of scratches, but you will notice some grain, especially in the night sequences and in the earlier epsiodes. The later espisodes are much better quality, probably because they were spending more money on the show (it shows) and taking better care of the tapes for syndication purposes when they knew they had a Hit Show. Still, the majority of the epsiodes look pretty good. Just pretend you're watching this series like you were in the 80s and it's almost unnoticeable. Younger audiences should act accordingly. (Younger audiences should also remember this series is not as realistic as the Cop Shows of today. MIAMI VICE was more like a cultural hyperrealism. Some of you will not buy into it. Again, in the 80s it was SEMINAL TV.) FOUR STARS for the Visuals.

The 80s TV sound has been remixed into Dolby 5.1. The volume is far too low and you won't hear anything coming out of your rear effects speakers. I wish they would have done it in 2.1 stereo so I could use my Prologic and get some sound out of my rear speakers. If you view the episodes from your TV speakers, you'll have to turn it up about 8 tenths to get a good volume. THREE 1/2 STARS for Sound.

The are only a few EXTRAS on the FIRST DISC of THE FIRST SEASON. A couple of documentaries on the fashion, sound, visuals, and impact of VICE. That's all. The show pretty much speaks for itself. Individual DISCS from SEASONS ONE and TWO contain a written synopsis of the individual episodes and a list of cameos when you click on them in the EPISODE MENU. They disappear after SEASON TWO and you must look to the SEASON BOX covers for a synopsis of each episode (sans a list of cameos.) ONE 1/2 STARS for the Extras.

Overall this BOX SET gets FOUR 1/2 STARS because the Series was the first of it's kind. And, the great sentimental value this holds for me personally.

If you're thinking about buying at least the first THREE SEASONS, stay away from the individual BOX SETS and buy THE COMPLETE SERIES. SEASONS FOUR and FIVE contain some great episodes and you'll get the 2 Hour Series Finale, FREEFALL. If you bought some of the individual SEASON BOX SETS, and think this SET is different, it's not. Aside from the single-sided DVDs, which may or may not persuade you to sell them off, you don't need to buy THE COMPLETE SERIES. Patient or wary fans will definitely want to purchase THE COMPLETE SERIES.

THIS WAS A MONUMENTAL TV SERIES. Warts and all!

ENJOY.

FYI
I was never a fan of this show, but for those of you that are, this set will be extended in amount of discs and will still contain ALL OF THE ORIGINAL MUSIC! It's a shame that Fox didn't do the same for WKRP or Paramount for Happy Days and other shows. Also, the discs are single-sided.

Miami Vice - Complete Series
Great stuff...takes me back a while in time but very worth it!!! Brings back the reasons I enjoyed "Miami Vice". Interesting to watch how it evolved from the very early days to how it is remembered now.