Could Miami Vice Have Survived?

[Boca Raton]

Absolutely not. The 90’s was really, really odd:

early 90’s was tacky neon-day glow “loudness/flair”

then it was full on grunge/gangsta rap: flannel, greasy hair.

then it was rap-rock/teen idol pop with streaks in hair & frosted tips/baggy pants.

 

[Ferrariman]

I had read that Don Johnson had the juice to keep the show going if he wanted. Obviously he didn't.   A good choice in my opinion. To me Vice lost it's "feel" (or soul) when Jan Hammer left.

[Augusta]

Wow, I'm sorry I missed this thread.  Danged Coronavirus---spoiled everyone's party and train of thought in 2020.  

I think there's "Could have", and "Would have" in that discussion somewhere. 

Would...as a prediction of whether the controllers of the series would have made the right decisions and piloted the show through the 1990's environment? 

I say No.  Miami Vice was (yep, like Star Wars) an idea that used so many never-before-used-for-this-purpose tools and devices, that it NEEDED the same original creators to know what's important to retain in the storytelling technique, to be able to keep pushing and protecting those tools when other Hollywood minds (minds who don't know how to make a Miami Vice nor how to make a Star Wars) think they can 'do without that actress' or 'alter that production technique', and the same creators to know how to use their same original  tools to decorate the changing feel of Miami (and of tv audiences) as the '80s evolved into '90s. 

Sadly, most of those original creators were gone by mid-Season 3.  (Think of it as losing Ben Burtt, John Williams, and Ewan McGregor and Frank Oz somewhere in middle of production for the Phantom Menace!!!) 

The original writers, the set artists, the music man Hammer, not just Mann and Yerkovich---they aren't just the people who could creatively "force" the show to feel a certain way---they are also the people who you can give orders to, and their creativity enables them to "carry out" those instructions beautifully.  With them gone, and replaced by folks who don't really have a grasp or understanding of the value of those "never-before-used-for-this-purpose tools" I mentioned (like why a music single and a bright orchid color is so necessary for the '80s audience---or why getting up in slow motion after you've shot your arch-villaim is more important to the '80s audience than explaining to them all the police-protocol reasons behind your department's investigation of that villain) Vice has no chance of being steered in the right direction to reach 1999.  No, it would not have survived.

 

COULD?  Could, as a observation of whether the show had the appeal and the flexibility built into it to function through the '90s? 

I say, very much Yes--and not because I'm a personal fan of the series.

"Thief", "Heat", "Crime Story",  "Last of the Mohicans", and others show Mann's ability to express 'the times' his movie or show is plopped into.  Doesn't matter if he's remaking an already successful movie like the Asphalt Jungle, or he's got one so-introverted character in his story that no one's ever going to get much of the history on this guy so the audience just has to fully accept him as Mann gives him to us.  Mann has the creative impulse to boldly insist on using certain tools or techniques that just end up working very well on the audience.  No one questions how characters dress or behave in "Mohicans", or question the kill-myself decisions they make----no one rejects the lunacy while watching Fiorello's boys hunting but never catching Luca and Pauley in "Crime Story". 

The audience would not have questioned or rejected Trudy selecting to upgrade to life in a new 90's style Miami apartment to suit her undercover identity, nor Crockett teasing Tubbs about that old-fart classic car he drives getting older and fartier, Gina being invited to the new 90's experimental Miami night club music, and the department having to combat Gansta Rappers wars, or get educated on Opiods as the new competition with Coke, all being kept track of through Palm Pilots, and Switek having to educate the team on wire-tapping counter-techniques, and those drug negotiations made over those new cellular burn-phones technology the criminals are getting into. 

People who live there will tell you, Miami didn't STOP being Miami, just because 1991 came around.  The "party" simply slowly changed its looks a little, and its sounds, and its devices.  It's Cuban fragrance is still there, its connections to ports of entry, and its desire for night passions.  Jan Hammer was STILL obsessed with those undiscovered Vice tones long after leaving the production crew. 

 

Nearly all actors/actresses of Hollywood are prissy---they only want to leave a show when they feel the show is dying, or that they are not being financed as high as they think they are worth, or that they think they can be even more successful signing a contract as a _____ (whatever).  It is only the rare human performers who want to leave because they can't safely commit a piece their private lives to the series without doing emotional damage to one or the other (in my opinion the only legitimate reason for leaving a series).  ALL these people, these original people, the composer, writers, set creators, producers, performers would have to stay on---so that mean RESPECT them, make sure they are taken care of, and NEGOTIATE with them when they ask for new changes in their contract arrangements.  (LOL, yeah, I know...that's something Hollywood power studio heads are proven failures at...finding a way to negotiate and keep a good thing going).

 

Yerkovich's ability to be impressed by a "place" or an "atmosphere", sparking a whole story or episode around that impression , and Mann's "you must not do this---only THAT" sense of direction, would have painted a Miami transforming from 80 through late 90, clear right down to the accompanying music selections. 

The audience still needed to "feel the mood" that a painful problem puts you through...far more than any need for a thorough study of the problem's details. 

The audience still needed music as the sort of "cocaine" to tune out the noise of anyone else existing in this world right now, it still needs to invoke all one's fury at the one singular pain that I must face right now,... and the audience still feels that tragic need to address that pain by resorting to an exchange of gunfire.  That was what drew us to Miami Vice in the '80s---and it's what draws a lot of us to the "Power", "American Gods", and "Breaking Bad" shows in the 2000's decades.

 

With the same crew (including Gary Kurtz, John Dykstra, Phil Tippet, Larry Kasdan), Star Wars I thru III would have been as undeniably award-winning as the first three.  One thing Lucas established well through his last three movies, even without his old creators working for him, was the changing look of the galaxy between Luke's decade and his dad's decade.

Nearly the same is true with Vice.  Nearly all the original staff would need to be working with them to ensure it, but Anthony and Michael could have kept Vice consistently award-winning, provided they stayed as vividly expressive and honest to whatever changes Miami goes through as a culture of the '90s, as they were in capturing the atmosphere of Miami in the '80s.  You have to keep in mind, Miami Vice wasn't just capturing Miami and slap-happy crime----it was also capturing the flaver of audience WE WERE back in the 80s.

Expressing US in the 1990's through Miami Vice would have been eeeaassy. 

 

But we GOTTA get a new partner for Stan, that would have been a must.