Miami Vice and The Influence Created in Television History

Beginning in 1984 with it‘s first season this show was the best series since color TV was invented. It had a target audience of people who had an interest in cop shows and the setting hence the name was in Florida. The creators had to keep inventing new ways for the actors to make an appearance that is pleasing to the eye. In different episodes during the first season you could see how the backgrounds were before the age of Computer Generated Imagery or CGI and this was because the computer was very new back then. So the directors had to shoot the scenes while making do with what Universal Studios had at the time. The characters would wear white and colored suits and usually black shoes when it came to the type of dress that the show usually was accustomed to. In later seasons you would start to see integration of the new computer imagery take effect along with an upgrade to the letters in the name title to give a white background to them. Every season would continue to have the setting of Miami Beach throughout the series. By the third season the series lost ratings to rival show Dallas so the staff got together and tried to work out a plan to bring viewers back. In the next season we started to see a different take on the clothing and even the scenery to make it more inviting and appealing to the eye.

The different cars you see in the series include a Ferrari and other popular cars during the time of the series airing on TV in the 80s. You can tell by the way everything looks in scenes that it was definitely a different time compared to what today’s vehicles look like. The directors and actors held meetings to discuss creative ideas on how the series as a whole to make things more eye catching to the audience. Besides a logo background change camera operators used different settings to make scenes look and feel like the environment of what the current setting of the character is. Universal has done this in other TV shows too in a aspect called foreshadowing where the characters kind of hint at what is to come in the next few seasons of a series. Miami Vice of course resides on Miami Beach and some episodes depict boats going across a lake and in my opinion these are scenes I enjoy the most.

What are your favorite seasons or episodes of this show? Should we see a reboot in the next couple years?

-Tristan