DJ & PMT Chemistry

[Noggie]

I've been reading a few threads I missed. A few remarked on a decline in chemistry between Don Johnson & Phillip Michael Thomas in season 4 & 5.  I just got the blu rays & I'm going to start watching season 4. Most episodes I haven't seen since they originally aired. A few I probably haven't seen at all. Was there a decline in chemistry?  Was the diminished role of the Tubbs character responsible?  They definitely had good chemistry in seasons 1 & 2.  It seemed like their relationship wasn't given much importance by the writers later on. 

I remember watching season 5 in it it's original run & there's the episode that ends with them fishing on the boat. I remember thinking it was nice to see them just hang out again. That aspect of the show was really neglected  think.  

[vicegirl85]

At the time the show originally aired, I was already an adult and did not notice a fall-off in the chemistry between the two characters.  If anything I thought it seemed like the relationship grew more natural and comfortable (until the events of the Burnett saga).  

When Crockett came back after his amnesia episode (that followed a shocking traumatic bereavement as well as a blast injury and even possibly near-drowning), it was obvious Tubbs was uncomfortable and not fully trusting that his old partner was the same person he was before.  Crockett as well did not seem quite as confident in his identity as an incorruptible officer.  I felt he wanted to be the same person (not just to Tubbs but to all of the squad as well) but he wasn't sure he ever could be the same again.  This affected his interactions with all of them.

In the past couple of years I've watched a lot of the episodes again for the first time in 20 years (at least), but not necessarily in sequence.  Although the show itself was more episodic than serial, I feel like it's necessary to take the run of the show in its entirety to judge the character chemistry over all 5 seasons, and I'm not sure I've taken that whole view yet.

I think there's room to believe and to state that the chemistry declined, but I also think it's necessary to think about what was happening with the characters during that time (especially season 5).  Just as we might say  I hated Crockett's scruffy look in Season 5, or I couldn't relate to the darker fashion tones of Season 3, those things are just the surface appearances.  What did those visual things have to do with the characters and their storylines/ the development of the overall storyline and theme of the show?   And if the chemistry between Crockett and Tubbs declined in Season 4 and/or 5, why might that have been, in relation to the story being told within the season as a whole?

I'm focusing on the characters because I believe DJ and PMT, the actors, were professional enough that they wouldn't have let their personal relationship (whatever it may have been) bleed into the show and their characters.  It has never seemed to me that they had a close personal friendship, but I feel they respected each other and were able to develop characters who had great chemistry.