Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past!  On Mondays, I will be reviewing Miami Vice, which ran on NBC from 1984 to 1989.  The entire show can be purchased on Prime!

The Vice Squad goes after Phil Collins!

Episode 2.11 “Phil the Shill”

(Dir by John Nicolella, originally aired on December 13th, 1985)

Switek and Zito call in sick so that they can go to the taping of a silly game show called Rat Race.  While Zito sits in the audience, Switek answers trivia questions about Elvis and competes in an obstacle course race with his spacey opponent (Emo Phillips).  Hosting the show is the very effusive and very British Phil Mayhew (Phil Collins).

As we already know, Switek knows everything about Elvis.  And he’s in better shape than Emo Phillips so, when it comes time for the obstacle course, he reaches and hits his buzzer first.  But Switek’s buzzer doesn’t go off.  Emo’s buzzer works and Emo proceeds to robotically recite a complex string of Elvis trivia.

To his horror, Switek realizes that the quiz show was fixed!

Switek and Zito decide that they want to take down Phil and reveal his con artist ways.  Unfortunately, for them, the rest of the Squad doesn’t care.  Crockett, in particular, is annoyed that Switek pretended to be sick to get a night off of work.  However, it then turns out that Phil has hooked up with Sarah MacPhail (Kyra Sedgwick), the girlfriend and business partner of Tony Rivers (Michael Margotta), a drug dealer that Crockett has spent months trying to set up.

It’s time to call in Izzy and have him pretend to be an interior decorator so that Phil can be tricked into throwing a party that can be attended by …. SONNY BURNETT AND RICO COOPER!  Listen, I know I mention that a lot but I just can’t let it go …. how are Sonny and Rico able to maintain their undercover identities when they’re constantly arresting major drug dealers and taking part in DEA busts?  How come it never occurs to the criminals that dealer Sonny Burnett might have something in common with cop Sonny Crockett?  Does no one ever notice that Sonny Burnett drives the same car and wears the same white suit as Sonny Crockett?

This was a bit of an odd episode.  It was obviously written so that Phil Collins (whose In The Air Tonight set the mood for the entire series) could play Phil Mayhew.  And while Phil Collins does not appear to have been an actor of amazing range, he still does a good job as the weaselly Phil Mayhew.  The Phil scenes are played for humor while the scenes with Tony Rivers definitely are not.  Tony is a violent sociopath who casually kills several people over the course of the episode.  Scenes of Switek pouting about the game show feel awkward when combined with scenes of Tony machine gunning two drug dealers.  Collins does a good job within his range and Michael Margotta is an energetic villain.  However, the best performance in this episode actually comes from Kyra Sedgwick, who does a great job as someone who eventually turns out to be just as ruthless and dangerous her boyfriend.

This is a fast-paced and energetic episode, one that moves quickly enough that the viewer doesn’t really have time to consider the oddness of Phil Mayhew getting involved with the same drug dealer that Crockett happens to be investigating.  Personally, I’m always happy when the members of the supporting cast get to do something more than just stand in the background.  Switek and Zito are a good team.