Charlie Burnett | Through the Shattered Lens

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!

This week, it’s the most infamous episode of Miami Vice ever!

Episode 4.7 “Missing Hours”

(Dir by Ate De Jong, originally aired on November 13th, 1987)

This is an episode that I had been waiting for years to see. From the moment I decided to review Miami Vice, I started to read about and hear about this seventh episode of the four season. This was the episode was supposedly so bad that many people consider it to be the point that Miami Vice “jumped the shark.” This is the episode were James Brown plays a white-suited singer named Lou de Long, who has going from performing songs to giving lectures about UFOs. (James Brown is essentially playing himself, right down to the presence of I Feel Good on the soundtrack.) This is the episode where Trudy disappears for 12 hours and then returns with no firm memories of where she was. This is the episode where even Crockett and Tubbs see a UFO. Even though his appearance here does not receive as much attention as much a James Brown’s, Chris Rock made his television debut as a nerdy technician named Carson who was into UFOs. Carson mentions getting his information for “computer bulleting boards” and everyone looks at him as if he’s speaking Esperanto.

This is the episode that is frequently cited as being the worst in Miami Vice history and really, who am I to disagree?

It pains me to say that. I really wanted to like this episode, just because it is so strange and and I’ve always been a bit of a contrarian at heart but …. no, this episode really doesn’t work. The sad truth of the matter is that, for all of his other talents, James Brown was a lousy actor and, with the exception of Michael Talbott and Philip Michael Thomas (who both appear to be having fun), the regular cast gives performance that suggest they all knew this episode was a bad idea. Miami Vice was at its best when it was a cynical and downbeat show about the futility of the war on drugs. There’s really no reason for Miami Vice to ever do a science fiction-themed episode. Somehow, this is the second such episode to air during the fourth season.

Of course, the episode’s most unforgivable sin is that it ends with Trudy waking up in bed. Not only is that ending a cop out but it’s also pretty rude to anyone who was actually trying to follow the plot or who was actually worried about whether or not Trudy had been brainwashed by the aliens. Perhaps if this had been a Halloween episode, all of this could have been excused but apparently, this episode aired in the middle of November.

Poor Trudy. Seriously, Olivia Brown didn’t really get many episode built around her character. It’s a shame that, when they gave her one, it was this one. Next week on Miami Vice, who knows? I’m on vacation. We’ll see what happens!

This week, things get weird in Miami!

Episode 2.22 “Trust Fund Pirates”

(Dir by Jim Johnston, originally aired on May 2ns 1986)

Pirate radio DJ Captain Hook (Richard Belzer) sits on his yacht in international waters and broadcasts music to Miami while, at the same time, brokering drug deals among other yacht owners. His assistant is Noogie (Charlie Barnett), the informant who was all over the place during Miami Vice’s first season but who, up until this episode, was absent from the second season.

On another yacht, a group of Bolivians are gunned down by preppy young men who are led by Ivy League dropout Skip Mueller (Perry Lang). Skip and his buddies brag about being pirates and cheerfully make jokes while standing over the bodies of the men and the women that they killed.

A seaplane pilot named Jackson Crane (a young Gary Cole) raids the Bolivian yacht and takes some of the boat’s equipment home with him. Jackson is a longtime drug smuggler who claims that he’s on the verge of retirement. He’s dating a woman named Lani (Nicole Fosse), who happens to be Skip’s sister.

In a trailer park, Jumbo (Tommy Chong) and his wife Fluffy (Denny Dillon) keep a running tally of how many rats they’ve killed while trying to buy drugs and fence stolen goods. Jumbo calls everyone “man.” Fluffy is good with a shotgun.

And, in the middle of all this, we’ve got two aspiring drug dealers named Burnett and Cooper. Burnett and Cooper, of course, are actually Crockett and Tubbs. Just two episodes ago, one of Miami’s fiercest drug lords figured out that Burnett and Cooper are actually cops but I guess he decided not to tell anyone, despite the fact that he still thinks Crockett owes him money.

It’s a bizarre episode, full of strange characters and a plot that has so many double-crosses that it’s hard to keep track of who is betraying who. The episode was originally intended to be a sequel to Smuggler’s Blues, with Glenn Frey once again playing Jimmy the Pilot. When Frey couldn’t fit a return appearance into his schedule, the script was rewritten to feature Gary Cole as a friend of Jimmy’s. That said, it’s still obvious that the script was originally written more to highlight a popular guest star than to tell a totally coherent story.

Fortunately, Miami Vice works best when its a bit incoherent. One the major themes of the show is that no one can be trusted and that everyone is willing to betray everyone else. The world of Miami Vice is often illogical because it’s a world full of illogical people who tend to do whatever pops into their head at any given moment. Another major theme is that everyone either wants to get rich from selling drugs or they’re just adrenaline junkies who get a high from being involved in the underground. Skip and his friends are rich. They just enjoy killing people and pretending to be gangsters. This is one of the more violent and bloody episodes of Miami Vice. Skip and his friends enjoy their work a little too much.

It’s a good episode and well-acted. Gary Cole was considered for the role of Crockett before Don Johnson got the part and, in this episode, it’s easy to see why. Even as a young actor, Cole has a rugged cynicism to him that’s both dangerous and compelling. Perry Lang appeared in a lot of dumb teen comedies in the 80s, usually playing dorky nice guys. He’s absolutely chilling as the sociopathic Skip Mueller. And finally, there’s Richard Belzer, wearing an eyepatch, opening the episode by rapping with Noogie, and encouraging the criminals of Miami to enjoy some good music while breaking the law. Full of strange characters and shocking violence, this episode captures the idea of Miami being a surreal playground for the rich, ruthless, and crazy.

Next week, season 2 comes to an end!