Retro Television Review: Miami Vice 4.10 “A Rock and a Hard Place”

Posted on July 14, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

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!

Sonny goes to Hollywood.

Episode 4.10 “A Rock and a Hard Place”

(Dir by Colin Bucksey, originally aired on January 22nd, 1988)

I guess I am going to have to accept that Miami Vice is no longer a show about two vice cops fighting a losing war against drug traffickers. Instead, it’s now a show about an undercover cop who is married to a world famous rock star, even though it makes absolutely no sense.

In this episode, a tabloid reporter goes to Miami to do some research on this Sonny “Burnett.” He hears a lot of stories about how Sonny Burnett is one of the city’s biggest drug dealers and he writes a story about it. Sonny is upset, though one would think this would actually help him maintain his cover story. Myself, I have to wonder how competent this reporter was. Sonny Crockett has been established as having been a semi-famous college football star (Tubbs recognized him as soon as he met him) but no one ever seems to notice that Sonny Cockett and Sonny Burnett look, sound, and act exactly alike. Considering the number of times that Crockett’s cover has gotten blown and that everyone who has ever done business with Sonny Burnett has ended up either getting arrested and gunned down by the police, you would think there would at least be some speculation about this guy being a cop.

(On a plus note, Don Henley’s Dirty Laundry played in the background while the reporter doing his thing. That’s a song you can’t help but chair dance to.)

The majority of this episode dealt with a corrupt record executive (Tony Hendra) who was looking to get out of paying Sonny’s wife, Caitlin, the money that she was owed for her new album. His solution was to have her assassinated and to make it look like she got caught in the crossfire of one of her husband’s drug deals. Needless to say, it didn’t work. Sonny gunned down the two assassins and then arrested the record executive. “You’re a cop!?” the bad guy said, stunned.

And again, I have to wonder how this is not going to blow Sonny’s cover. Is the press really not going to ask why Caitlin’s criminal husband just arrested the guy releasing her latest album?

This episode had all sorts of plot holes and it asked the audience to suspend their disbelief just a bit too far. But at least it didn’t features Crockett and Tubbs searching for a stolen shipment of bull semen. That’ll be next week’s episode!

(Seriously, I’m not kidding….)

I miss the old Miami Vice. Seriously, the city’s drug business is probably booming because Crockett and Tubbs are wasting their time with all of this season 4 nonsense.

Retro Television Review: Miami Vice 4.8 “Like A Hurricane”

Posted on June 23, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Crockett gets married! Huh?

Episode 4.8 “Like a Hurricane”

(Dir by Colin Bucksey, originally aired on November 20th, 1987)

Crockett is upset when he’s assigned to serve as a bodyguard to singer Caitlin Davies (Sheena Easton). Caitlin is a witness to the criminal activity of music industry executive Tommy Lowell (Xander Berkeley) and the Vice Squad is worried that he might send someone to kill her. Crockett doesn’t have much use for celebrities and Caitlin doesn’t have much use for a cop continually telling her what to do. But after Crockett saves Caitlin’s life multiple times, they fall in love and the episode ends with Crockett and Caitlin getting married.

Wow, Crockett got married!

I mean, is Caitlin going to live on his boat? Is the crocodile going to be okay with this? For that matter, wouldn’t the fact that he just married a celebrity make it difficult for Crockett to continue his undercover work as Sonny Burnett? I mean, I imagine there was a lot of press coverage of the marriage. Caitlin, we’re told, is a pretty big deal.

Honestly, Crockett getting married should have been a big moment but this episode just fell flat. The main problem is that Don Johnson and Sheena Easton didn’t have much romantic chemistry so their sudden love for each felt as if it came out of nowhere. Sonny getting married that quickly seemed a bit out-of-character for him. This episode, like much of season 4, felt like it was mostly the result of the writers grasping at straws to find something new to do with the show. Last week, Trudy got kidnapped by aliens. This week, Crockett got married. Maybe next week, Tubbs will take on the Yakuza. Who knows? At this point, it all feels random.

We’ll see what happens. For now, here’s Sheena Easton performing one of my favorite Bond songs.

Retro Television Review: Miami Vice 3.24 “Heroes of the Revolution”

Posted on April 14, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, season 3 comes to a close with a threat from the past!

Episode 3.24 “Heroes of the Revolution”

(Dir by Gabrielle Beaumont, originally aired on May 8th, 1987)

The Vice Squad is investigating Orrestes Pedrosa (Shawn Elliott), a former Fidel Castro henchman who has since come to Miami and is now trying to set himself up a major drug supplier. There’s also a mysterious German named Klaus Herzog (Jeroen Krabbe) who appears to be following Pedrosa around Miami.

After getting wounded in a nearly-successful drive-by shooting, Herzog breaks into Gina’s apartment and introduces himself as the ex-boyfriend of Gina’s mother. He goes to explain that Pedrosa was also in love with Gina’s mother and that he killed her when Gina was just a baby. Pedrosa is still obsessed with Gina’s mother so Herzog suggests that Gina should get a job singing at a club. Pedrosa will come out of hiding to see her and Herzog will get his chance for revenge.

Gina agrees, even though it means violating every rule in the Vice book. The end result is that we get a lot of scenes of Saundra Santiago singing and eventually, she shoots Pedrosa dead when he attempts to shoot Herzog.

It’s an interesting choice for a season finale. Crockett and Tubbs are barely present in this episode, allowing Gina to finally have center stage. (Interestingly enough, the third season opened with a Gina episode as well.) Saundra Santiago was often underused by the show so it’s always good to see her getting a chance to do something other than telling Sonny that he got a call. She and the wonderful Jeroen Krabbe have an interesting chemistry in this episode. Pedrosa isn’t the only one who is still in love with Gina’s mother.

On the one hand, I was happy that Miami Vice finally featured a villainous communist. Politically, Miami Vice tends to be so left-wing that it sometimes verges on parody so a villainous Castroite was a change of pace. But then Krabbe’s character introduced himself by saying, “I am a communist.” It was as if the show had to make sure we understood that it was still on the side of Marx. It felt kind of silly, to be honest.

Anyway, the third season ended on a fairly good note. Neither Don Johnson nor Philip Michael Thomas really seemed that invested in their characters for much of the third season so it’s been nice to see Michael Talbott, Saundra Santiago, and Olivia Brown each get an opportunity to show off what they could do when given the opportunity. This was an uneven season but it had its share of good episodes. I’m still struggling to deal with the death of Larry Zito.

Next week, we begin season 4!