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January 27th - February 3rd: "Smuggler's Blues", the 15th episode of the 1st season, premiered on NBC on Friday, February 1st, 1985 at 10PM EST. Some notes on this episode (from Miami Vice Wiki): * This episode was inspired by Glenn Frey's hit song "Smuggler's Blues", the lyrics of which deal with the issue of drug smuggling through Florida. Michael Mann heard the song on the radio and asked Miguel Piñero to write an episode based around it. In fact, several of the song's lyrics are repeated or paraphrased in the episode's dialogue. * An acoustic version of "Smuggler's Blues" can be heard at the end of the episode. It has never been released. * The yacht blown up in the opening sequence once belonged to actress Bette Davis, called the "Christmas Tree." It was used by Davis to entertain guests in the 1930s and by the time of it's destruction was held in Watson Marina, requiring four pumps to prevent it from sinking into Biscayne Bay. It was sold to Miami Vice producers for $500. It's planned destruction before Christmas Day, 1984, was delayed due to government red tape (caused by environmental concerns), Don Johnson's illness and a no-show by singer Iggy Pop for a role in the episode which held up filming. * "Trust Fund Pirates" (from the second season) was to be a direct sequel to this episode, but Glenn Frey was unavailable to reprise his role as Jimmy. "Little Miss Dangerous", the 15th episode of the 2nd season, premiered on NBC on Friday, January 31st, 1986 at 9PM EST. Some notes on this episode (from Miami Vice Wiki): * Fiona's character, Jackie, gives her birthday as June 21, 1967, making her 18 years old at the time of the show. At the time of filming, Fiona was actually 24 years old. * The Anchor Hotel sign where Jackie and Cat were staying had letters burned out to make it appear as "A Hor Htel" * The Henrosa Hotel (where Zito is met by a sea of reporters) is still in existence and was remodeled like the other Art Deco buildings in South Beach. **There was no Season 3 premiere episode this week.** **There was no Season 4 premiere episode this week.** "Fruit Of The Poison Tree", the 9th episode of the 5th season, premiered on NBC on Friday, February 3rd, 1989 at 9PM EST. Some notes on this episode (from Miami Vice Wiki): * The opening scene (with the train running through the Miami night) is the same as the opening scene to the episode "Hostile Takeover". * Starting with this episode, Miami Vice's time slot changed from 10:00pm to 9:00pm, where it would remain until the episode "Victims Of Circumstance". * In the scene with Lisa and Crockett in her office after Enriquez has been released, she has her hands together over her face as Crockett hugs her to comfort her, yet in the clip from another angle, she is hugging Crockett with her right arm on his shoulder. In the same scene, Lisa is wearing one pinky ring on her left hand. Throughout the rest of the episode, she has two pinky rings, one on each hand. * The doctrine of "Fruit of the Poisonous Tree", which is what the episode's title refers to, requires that something found as a result of an illegal search that leads to evidence in a trial, is inadmissible in court. In the first trial, Switek's error on the search warrant caused the case to be dismissed. However, this doctrine does allow for a search based on the officer's "good-faith" belief in the warrant being valid and in the "real world" may not have been cause for dismissal. The second trial, where Crockett got info on Enriquez from his attorney (Lisa Madsen), violated attorney-client privilege and should have been excluded per the "Fruit of the Poison Tree" doctrine.

From the book "The Making Of Miami Vice by MacGregor and MacGregor."Aaron Lipstadt is one of several young directors we've worked with who shows a lot ofpromise," says co-producer Richard Brams. "We want to use him again." Rob Cohenwas another of those directors.Shortly after Cohen directed "Evan," however, he met Keith Bansh and found hiscircumstances changing dramatically when he was offered a partnership in Taft/BarishProductions. "I'd gotten an offer to direct six episodes of VICE for the second season.When I told Michael I was going to be producing films for Keith, he told me I was nuts.Here I was, someone who'd always envisioned himself as a director and Michael wasgiving me the opportunity to direct. I was saying, Yeah, it's a great opportunity, but sois the chance to produce ten features.'"When someone's willing to make you the head of a company and a partner, so youhave a stake in how things are done, you stand to do very well. It's a lot better to directwhen you're independently wealthy than it is when you need a job."But Richard Brams still encouraged him to do more episodes. "He told me thatinstead of taking a vacation, I should go to Miami and direct an episode." Brams, in fact,called him about a script focusing on Crockett and his son, and Cohen agreed to do it."About a week before I was supposed to go to Miami, I was bugging everyone for acopy of the script. But Brams said Michael didn't want to introduce Crockett's son backinto the series. 'So what're you going to do about a script?' I asked him. He said therewas one called 'Definitely Miami,' which they were thinking of doing instead."The script was weak. "But I knew if I didn't direct it, I wouldn't be doing an episodethis year. I realized from the start it was going to have to be a victory of style oversubstance. I try to define a goal like that for each episode." In "Evan" the goal was todeepen the relationship between Crockett and Tubbs. In "Definitely Miami," the goalwas to push the boundaries of sexuality on television back as far as he could push them."Other than one shot of Arielle Dombasle's breasts, which the censors made me cut, thatshow went on the air as I shot it. It had more sexuality in it than anything I've ever seenon television. It broke all the ratings for the shows with a forty-three share."The weakness of the episode was that it had two plots that never came together. Inone, Crockett becomes involved with Callie, a blonde French woman(Arielle Dombasle), whose husband, Charlie (Ted Nugent), is a hired killer and a drug dealer. Inthe other, a womanwho is a potential witness against her brother and other drugwholesalersmurders the brother in front of Crockett and Tubbs. In the beginning itbothered Cohen that the two storylines never connected. But by the end of the shooting,he felt the loose ends actually depicted the life of a vice cop in a more realistic light."The problem with TV is that things are always nicely wrapped up. But in the real life ofa vice cop, there are always loose ends; they make mistakes."The trap of the vice cop is that the more confident he becomes, the more likely he isto be struck from his blind side. "You can never predict what human beings are going todo and that's what I strived for. I saw this show as a kind of daytime film noir. I wantedto take the noir values and put them in the daylight."Callie, the spider woman, arranges a drug buy for Crockett with her husband, whohas been beating her. Only it's a trap. Crockett escapes by blocking a bullet with a steellinedbrief case, and Charlie is killed by a police officer hiding nearby. "When Callie iswaiting on the beach, we see this dissolve that's Nugent, then Crockett. We realize itdoesn't make any difference to the woman who comes back. When a helicopter landsand Callie is arrested, she accompanies the cop down the beach, and tries to put themoves on him. She's psychotic."Cohen considers art director Jeffrey Howard to be the secret that made the episodesucceed stylistically. "Visually, he knew the episode better than anyone. I would say, 'Ineed this,' and he'd know where it was. For the ending of the episode, I told him Ineeded a certain kind of beach - empty, very Japanese with blue water, white sand, bluesky. And he knew where it was. In fact, anything I was able to achieve in all of theshows I directed couldn't have been done without him."Miami as a location, says Cohen, is amazingly unlimited. "It's a sensual, romanticenvironment. I'm always astonished by the array of architecture, houses....The onlything it doesn't have is hills."Cohen relates how Mann first explained his philosophy about the show. "We weredriving back from a nightclub about three in the morning in typical Michael Mannfashionin a Porsche Turbo Carrera, doing about one hundred and ten miles per hourdown Miami streets. He says to me, 'Listen, go for broke with the episode. I'd ratheryou fail completely than be mediocre. Go for any crazy thought you have, just don'tturn in something safe. So I didn't." Like Mann, Cohen is familiar with risk-taking. As atwenty-two-year-old working as a "gopher" for executives at Twentieth Century Fox, hetold an ABC executive he was the studio's producer of movies of the week. "They didn'thave a movie of the week department. I'd just created it, and when I got a coupleprojects from the network, I got the job."Once again, he ponders the difference between directing on television and features."On features, you're constantly reviewing other films, trying to figure out how to usegood ideas from Spielberg or whomever you admire. But on television, on VICE, there'sso little time, that it's always more exciting to work instinctively than to take thecerebral approach."He walks over to the photograph of Miami at night and balances it on the director'schair. "This was a view of the Miami skyline from Crockett's boat. Sometimes I just takeit out like this and look at it and remember what it felt like shooting at night on theboat. Café Cubano at three A.M., the humidity, the sweetness of the air, the mosquitos."He pauses, immersed in the photo for a moment, then smiles. "You know how youalways wonder what your last thought will be when you die? Well, mine will be ofMiami and MIAMI VICE."

I AM EL GATO!!!Thats what sprung in my head the moment I looked at it,gotta love his taste in clothes

You are correct about case 008 sir. Cases 006 and 007 are still open. 007 is seen early in Season 1. Everyone is free to jump in and solve these cases.

One of the episodes I watch over and over again. Really solid story, acting and locations. On of my "10 best episodes" list.

Gotta agree with Jim and Matt on this episode, it was quite creepy and I thought parts of the story should have been rewritten. I compare it to eating bad mexican food and not having any anti-acid near by to kill the burn.

Most likely met woman, fell in love and got married, ala DanJ ! :)

Echt cool, dass du wieder da bist, Christian!

Great info, it reminded me that the anniversary of my favorite episode's premier is coming up. (LMD on 31 Jan). Man the person who wrote this stuff for Miami Vice Wiki really knows their Vice. Does anyone know who this is?

Just didn't like this one at all - the content far too dark for my taste . Hard to believe Jim Johnstone directed this after such stylized pieces with "Nobody Lives Forever" and "Out where the buses don't run" .

Hardly one of the best episodes, as creepy as any, but I thought DJ's acting was good.