Retro Television Review: Miami Vice 5.20 “Leap of Faith”

Posted on April 6, 2026 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!

When is Miami Vice not Miami Vice?

Episode 5.20 “Leap of Faith”

(Dir by Robert Iscove, originally aired on June 28th, 1989)

A crazed college professor named Terry Baines (Keith Gordon) is making his own designer drugs and selling them to the cult-like college students who worship his every move. Terry thinks that the drugs will help people move into a dream state. However, Terry also doesn’t care how many people die as a result of entering that dream state. Terry is obviously crazy but he’s got tenure.

Fortunately, the youthful cops of the Young Victims Unit are able to go undercover as college students and infiltrate Terry’s organization. Joey Harden (Justin Lazard) is the newest member of the squad. He’s a cop who does things his way! Zach (Cameron Dye) is the wild man. He’s from Arkansas! And Ray Mundy (Adam Storke), he’s a surfer from California! Their boss is Lt. Paul Cutter (Kiel Martin). Tania Louis (Laura San Giacomo) is their computer expert. Together, they’re….

….not Crockett and Tubbs!

Crockett and Tubbs appear at the start of the episode and then Crockett appears in another scene, in which it’s established that he and Cutter have a contentious relationship. Otherwise, this really isn’t an episode of Miami Vice. Instead, it’s a pilot for a show about the Young Victims Unit. The pilot never became a series and, watching this episode, one can see why. The three undercover cops are all way too similar. They seem like three different versions of the same guy. Kiel Martin and Laura San Giacomo at least manage to bring some life to their characters but the rest of the cast is just bland. The best performance comes from Keith Gordon and he’s dead by the end of the episode.

Next week …. Miami Vice comes to an end as Tubbs falls in love and Crockett refuses to get a haircut.

Retro Television Review: Miami Vice 5.19 “Miracle Man”

Posted on March 30, 2026 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, the Miracle Man arrives in Miami!

Episode 5.19 “Miracle Man”

(Dir by Alan Myerson, originally aired on June 21st, 1989)

Who is the Miracle Man?

The Miracle Man (played by Jose Perez) is an overweight, middle-aged man who sometimes wears an eye mask and a t-shirt with a big M on it. He rallies the good people of Miami to take back their neighborhoods from the drug dealers. He thwarts drug deals, even the ones that are actually a part of an undercover operation. He’s something of a pest. The cops wants to stop him. The criminals want to kill him. A news reporter (Zach Grenier) wants to make him a star.

In real life, he’s actually Gregory Esteban and he is Izzy’s cousin. A former junkie, he blames himself for the overdose death of his daughter and he’s now determined to launch a one-man war against crime. He’s also bipolar and running low on his meds, which makes him unpredictable. Switek and Tubbs eventually catch the Miracle Man but he still manages to escape from the safehouse. His actions lead to the death of this week’s drug dealers but they also lead to him getting killed as well. That’s not really a surprise. Guest stars almost always died on Miami Vice.

This episode didn’t work for me. The Miracle Man character was too over-the-top to be taken seriously and, as a result, his story and his death didn’t have the emotional impact that it should have. As well, the villains were forgettable and generic. Considering how surreal Miami Vice could be, one would be justified in expecting this episode to be much more stylized than it was. Unfortunately, it was just dull. The Miracle Man could not save it.

Don Johnson is only in this episode for the first two minutes. Edward James Olmos isn’t in it at all. (Crockett and Castillo are described as being absent to prepare for a trial.) The whole episode feels like filler. I can kind of understand why it wasn’t aired during season 5’s original run.

Sorry, Miracle Man.

Retro Television Review: Miami Vice 5.18 “World of Trouble”

Posted on March 23, 2026 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, Al Lombard retuns.

Episode 5.18 “World of Trouble”

(Dir by Alan Myerson, originally aired on Jun 14th, 1989)

Way back in the first season, Dennis Farina appeared as an honorable gangster named Al Lombard who did not want his son, Sal, to follow him into the family business. During his first appearance, Lombard considered ratting out his associates in return for an immunity deal but, in the end, he refused. Al Lombard was old school. He was not a rat. That didn’t make much difference to his associates. The episode ended with an ambiguous freeze frame and gunshot that suggested they had executed him.

In this episode, it is revealed that Al Lombard faked his death and has spent the last few years in Europe. When a judge dismisses the years-old indictment against him, Al returns to Miami so he can visit his son, Sal (Timothy Patrick Quill). Despite the fact that Lombard went back on his promise to testify against his associates, Crockett and Tubbs are still happy to see him. Al is a likable guy!

Unfortunately, the whole thing is a set-up. Rival gangster Federico Librizzi (Ned Eisenberg) arranged for the indictment to be dismissed in order to lure Al back to Miami. Once in Miami, Al is upset to discover that Sal is now involved in the family business and that a gang war is about to break out over a new superweapon that Sal stole from the DEA. When Librizzi’s hitmen try to take out Al, they hit Sal instead.

Sal is dead and Al wants revenge. Al is smart enough to show up at a meeting between Librizzi and Burnett and Cooper (*sigh* the undercover thing again). Librizzi shoots Al, forcing Crockett and Tubbs to shoot Librizzi.

This was one of the fifth season episodes that did not originally air during the show’s network run. It was included in syndication as a “lost episode.” Dennis Farina gives a charismatic performance as Al Lombard but that’s about all this episode really has going for it. The other performances are nowhere close to being as good as Farina’s and the whole plot to bring Lombard back to Miami is ludicrously convoluted. Seriously, there aren’t mob hitmen in Europe?

Retro Television Review: Miami Vice 5.17 “Freefall”

Posted on March 2, 2026 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, Crockett and Tubbs are burned out.

Episode 17 “Freefall”

(Dir by Russ Mayberry, originally aired on May 12th, 1989)

As this episode begins, we find Crockett and Tubbs at their most cynical. After five years as partners, they’ve seen a lot of bad guys go down. They’ve seen a lot of innocent people die. Larry Zito was killed by drug dealers. Switek has developed a gambling addiction. Gina has shot numerous men in cold blood. Trudy was kidnapped by aliens. Castillo has never once smiled. None of it seems to make any difference.

When the government approaches them and orders Crockett and Tubbs to go into a war-torn island country and smuggle out dictator General Manuel Borbon (Ian McShane), Crockett is not happy about the assignment. Tubbs, however, believes that the government is telling the truth about Borbon having information that could take down the world’s biggest drug cartel. The government, for their part, think that Crockett and Tubbs have the undercover experience to pull off the operation. Has the government not noticed that Crockett and Tubbs have had their covers blown in nearly every episode?

Of course, it turns out that the government is lying. They just wanted Borbon out of the country so he wouldn’t reveal what he knows about American intelligence’s activities in Central America. Crockett and Tubbs manage to get Borbon to Miami but they then find themselves under constant attack from the drug gangs that want Borbon dead. Borbon proves to be untrustworthy. Because of his gambling addiction, Castillo suspects that Switek may have sold out his partners. Switek responds by tracking down three hitmen and gunning them down. Did Switek sell out Crockett and Tubbs? The answer isn’t clear but it does seem like his time as a detective is coming to an end.

Finally, Tubbs and Crocket do what they have to do. They go on a “suicide” mission that involves them firing their weapons at Borbon’s sea plane until it explodes. Borbon is killed and so are several of his American associates. When the CIA man in charge of the operation threatens to have their badges, Crockett and Tubbs toss their badges on the ground. Castillo offers to back them up if they chose to stay on the force. Tubbs says thanks but no thanks. Tubbs is going back to New York. Crockett is heading further south, presumably to live in the Florida everglades.

And so, Miami Vice ends.

Except it doesn’t! There were four so-called “lost episodes” that aired in syndication. We’ll take a look at them over the next four weeks.

As for Freefall, it’s not a terrible conclusion to the story of Crockett and Tubbs. It stays true to the cynicism that ran though the entire series. Crockett and Tubbs finally admit that the War on Drugs is a sham and they quit. It’s a shame that Gina and Trudy didn’t get to do much in the finale. I wasn’t happy with the idea of Switek being a traitor but it actually did work for his character. Switek had been spiraling ever since Zito was killed. This episode has a lot of surprisingly violent action, the show’s trademark political subtext, and Johnson and Thomas bringing their characters to life one last time.

Apparently, this episode was originally envisioned as ending with both Crockett and Tubbs dying. That actually would have been a totally appropriate ending as both characters have often seemed as if they had a death wish. However, the network turned down that idea because they were hoping to do a spin-off series. Crockett and Tubbs were spared by the higher-ups. The series ends — or it would end if not for the four extra episodes — with Crockett and Tubbs speeding through the streets of Miami and it’s had not to feel that’s the way it should be.

Retro Television Review: Miami Vice 5.16 “Victim of Circumstances”

Posted on February 23, 2026 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, Crockett goes undercover as a Neo-Nazi.

Episode 5.16 “Victim of Circumstances”

(Dir by Colin Bucksey, originally aired on May 5th, 1989)

When a Miami coffeeshop is the scene of a violent shooting that leaves several dealers and the coffeeshop’s owner dead, Crockett and Tubbs assume that it’s just another part of an ongoing drug war. However, when it’s discovered that the owner of the coffeeshop was a Holocaust survivor who was scheduled to testify against a former guard named Hans Kozak (William Hickey), Crockett comes to suspect that the hit was ordered by a Neo-Nazi group. Crockett and Switek go undercover to infiltrate the group but it turns out that the killer was actually Helen Jackson (Karen Black), a reporter who is the daughter of Hans Kozak and who is trying to kill everyone who can testify against her father. Crockett and Tubbs manage to capture Helen but Helen is subsequently gunned down by Angelo Alvarez (John Leguizamo), the brother of one the dealers who was killed at the coffeeshop.

This was an interesting episode. On the one hand, it was based in reality. In the days following World War II, several concentration camp commandants were put on trial and executed for war crimes but the Allies were so busy going after the people in charge that there were several guards, doctors, and other personnel who were able to escape justice and who immigrated elsewhere. Quite a few went to South America. Several turned up in the Middle East. And there were many who ended up in America. It wasn’t until decades after the war that people started to get serious about tracking down and putting on trial the camp personnel who were often as brutal as the people giving the orders. By the time many of them started going on trial, they were elderly and often frail, like Hans Kozak. And, just as in this episode, there were many Neo-Nazi groups who protested the trials and sometimes tried to help the accused escape justice.

On the other hand, this episode played out in such a surreal manner that it often felt rather dream-like, with Hans Kozak being haunted by nightmares and the Neo-Nazis themselves meeting in ceremonies that felt as if they could have been lifted from one of Fritz Lang’s Dr. Mabuse films. Karen Black plays her role with such wild-eyed intensity that the revelation that she was the killer isn’t really that much of a surprise. As for William Hickey, he doesn’t so much chew the scenery as he treats it like a buffet. This was one of those episodes that felt like it could spin off into space at any given moment. If James Brown had returned as the alien who abducted Trudy, I would not have been surprised.

This episode was definitely watchable and Stefan Gierasch gave a strong performance as the Nazi hunter who was determined to track down Hans Kozak. There was nothing subtle about it but it’s still one of the more memorable episodes of the show’s final season.

Speaking of final season, next week will feature Crockett and Tubbs in their final adventure. And then, we’ll look at the four “lost” episodes, which aired in syndication after the show’s network run ended. And then, we’ll done with Miami …. for now.

(No one is every truly done with Miami.)

Retro Television Review: Miami Vice 5.15 “Over The Line”

Posted on February 16, 2026 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, the Vice Squad learns that a man has to know his limitations.

Episode 5.15 “Over The Line”

(Dir by Russ Mayberry, originally aired on April 28th, 1989)

“All of our heroes are dead.”

That line was delivered in 1973’s Magnum Force, by a motorcycle cop-turned-vigilante who justified his murderous actions by claiming that he was a part of the first generation without heroes. That line could have just as easily been delivered by the cops in this episode of Miami Vice.

Crockett and Tubbs are recruited by Walter Stevens (Thomas Arana), a cop-turned-vigilante who explains to them that, once they join his organization, they can never leave. Of course, Crockett and Tubbs are only pretending to be vigilantes so that they can take down both the drug dealers and Walter’s organization. They do this despite the fact that, in many ways, Crockett agrees with Walter. But when Walter’s methods lead to three good cops getting killed, Crockett realizes that Walter has to be stopped. Even worse, he discovers that Walter is funding his operation by selling the cocaine that he confiscates from the dealers.

When Crockett pulls his gun on Walter and tells him to surrender, Walter appears to be doing so. Walter warns Crockett that there’s a lot more to the organization than Crockett realizes. Suddenly, a police captain named Robert Highsmith (Robert Fields) pops up and shoots Walter. Crockett says that Walter was surrendering. Highsmith insists that he saved Crockett’s life.

With the drug dealers and the bad cops taken down, Highsmith takes all the credit. Highsmith is not only a police captain but he’s also a candidate for Dade County Supervisor. At a televised “meet-the-candidate” forum, Highsmith brags about how he personally is helping to clean up the city. Crockett watches and says, “Whatever it takes, right?”

Agck!

Seriously, this episode is cynical even by the standards of Miami Vice. Legitimate cops like Crockett and Tubbs can’t do their job because of budget cuts. The vigilante cops are taking down the drug dealers but they’re also stealing and selling cocaine so they’re not actually doing anything to stop the flow of drugs into Miami. Walter becomes the first Miami Vice bad guy to both show remorse and to willingly surrender but he’s still gunned down by Captain Highsmith who, at the end of the episode, appears poised to be elected to political office. Miami Vice was often critical of the War on Drugs. This episode showed why the war couldn’t be won, despite the best efforts of soldiers like Crockett, Tubbs, and Castillo. Men like Highsmith had to appear to be winning the war so that they could accumulate more power but if they actually did win the war, they would no longer be given carte blanche to do whatever they wanted.

This was a dark but effective episode. Crockett’s hair has never been longer and he’s never appeared more defeated.

Retro Television Review: Miami Vice 5.14 “The Lost Madonna”

Posted on February 9, 2026 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, Crockett and Tubbs — or is it Burnett and Cooper? — enter the art world.

Episode 5.14 “The Lost Madonna”

(Dir by Chip Chalmers, originally aired on March 17th, 1989)

When Crockett and Tubbs take down what they think is a drug deal, they’re shocked to discover that Stanley Costa (Stephen G. Anthony) was actually smuggling two paintings! They could always ask Stanley what’s going on but — whoops! They killed him during the show’s precredit sequence.

Detective Whitehead (Michael Chiklis) comes down from New York City and explains that the two paintings are the side pieces for a triptych called The Last Madonna. It was recently stolen from a Paris museum and Whitehead is convinced that theft was masterminded by Joey Scianti (Peter Dobson).

It’s time for Tubbs and Crockett to — *sigh* — go undercover. Why they’re still always going undercover, I have never really understood. Every time they go undercover, their cover gets blown. Do the members of the Miami underworld just not communicate with each other? Shouldn’t everyone know, by this point, that Tubbs and Crockett are cops? In this case, Tubbs goes undercover as someone who appreciates art. Crockett goes undercover as the crude Sonny Burnett….

Yes, Crockett is still using the Burnett cover. He’s doing this despite the fact that he just recently had a mental breakdown that led to him not only thinking that he actually was Burnett but also becoming Miami’s biggest drug lord. Even if the Scianti family was dumb enough to not know that Crockett was a cop, surely they would have heard enough about drug lord Sonny Burnett to wonder why he would be hanging out with a connoisseur of fine art.

(Indeed, it’s hard not to notice that everyone has apparently moved on rather quickly from Sonny’s mental breakdown and his time as a drug lord. For that matter, Sonny certainly doesn’t seem to ever give much thought to his dead second wife. Remember her? The world-famous singer who was literally gunned down in front of him? She appears to have been forgotten.)

This episode was dull, largely because the Scianti family was never really a credible threat. They came across as being a bunch of buffoons and, as such, it was hard to really get that concerned about whether or not they would figure out that Crockett and Tubbs were actually cops. This is another episode that features a twist that you’ll see coming from miles away. From the minute Michael Chiklis first showed up, I knew that he was eventually going to try to steal the The Lost Madonna for himself.

Considering that there was a lot of humor in this episode (Crockett, not surprisingly, struggled with understanding modern art), there’s also some surprisingly graphic violence. Crockett and Tubbs gun down Stanley Costa and blood splatters all over the wall. Whitehead shoots Joey Scianti and the shocked Joey looks down at his wound and says that it’s “real blood.” Tonally, this episode is all over the place.

Everyone seemed kind of bored with this episode. This was definitely a final season entry.

Retro Television Review: Miami Vice 5.13 “The Cell Within”

Posted on February 2, 2026 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, Tubbs gets kidnapped and the entire episode is oddly dull. Presumably because it’s the final season and no one was paying attention, the show took a risk and it did not pay off.

Episode 5.13 “The Cell Within”

(Dir by Michael B. Hoggan, originally aired on March 10th, 1989)

Former criminal Jake Manning (John P. Ryan) has apparently reformed himself. As getting busted by Tubbs, Manning spent years in a tiny cell where he read Shakespeare and Dostoevsky. Sponsored by renegade film director Robert Phelps (L.M. Kit Carson), Jake is now a free man and a published author. Tubbs is convinced that Jake has changed his ways and when Jake invites him to a dinner party, Tubbs accepts.

(Crockett is on vacation, spending time with his son. During his brief appearance on the episode, Crockett jokes about what a great book he and Tubbs could write if they were ever arrested. Uhmm …. you were arrested, Crockett. Remember when you were a drug lord? The show appears to have forgotten but I haven’t.)

Anyway, it turns out that Jake has built a prison under his house where he keeps undesirables locked up and every few days, he electrocutes them. He kidnaps Tubbs so that Tubbs can see and hear about Jake’s view of how justice should be meted out. Jake likes to talk and talk and talk and talk.

Ugh, this episode.

I’m honestly surprised that I got through this episode because it was just so mind-numbingly dull. The show attempted to do something different with its format and that’s fine. But Jake was so long-winded and his cartoonish prisoners were such thinly drawn stereotypes that it didn’t take me long to lose interest. I’ve never liked episodes of cop shows that center around hostage situations or kidnappings. It’s hard to build much narrative momentum when no one can really move around. It gets boring to watch and that was certainly the case here. That John P. Ryan spent most of the episode wearing a flowing robe did not help matters. It made him look like a Saruman cosplayer at a Lord of the Rings convention. I probably would have laughed if it all hadn’t been so dull.

As always, it’s interesting to see Tubbs at the center of a story but even the normally smooth Philip Michael Thomas didn’t seem to know what to make of all these nonsense. As I watched Tubbs rather easily fall victim to Jake’s trap, I wondered why Tubbs has suddenly become such a stupid character. I mean, seriously, anyone should have been able to see through Manning’s invitation. For Tubbs, this episode was the equivalent of that time Trudy got kidnapped by the alien who looked like James Brown.

All in all, this was not a good episode. It’s the final season so it makes sense that you’re going to get a few clunkers. Hopefully, next week will be better.

Retro Television Review: Miami Vice 5.11 “Miami Squeeze”

Posted on January 19, 2026 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, the British are coming!

Episode 5.11 “Miami Squeeze”

(Dir by Michelle Manning, originally aired on February 17th, 1989)

There’s a new drug lord in Miami. He’s a British dandy named Sebastian Ross (Robert Joy) and it’s impossible to take him seriously as a legitimate threat. The show continually tells us how dangerous Sebastian is. When the son (Daniel Villarreal) of anti-drug Congresswoman Madeleine Woods (Rita Moreno) attempts to double-cross Sebastian, Sebastian blackmails the Congresswoman and also tries to make Castillo look like a dirty cop. Castillo ends up getting shot, all as a result of Sebastian’s schemes.

And yet, despite all of that, it’s impossible to take Sebastian seriously. He’s just a ridiculous character, a drug dealer who dresses like an Edwardian gentleman and who carries a can and who speaks with a remarkably bad British accent. (Robert Joy is himself Canadian. I should mention that Joy is also a very good character actor. He’s just miscast here.) As a character, Sebastian threw off the entire episode. When you include Rita Moreno acting up a storm, this episode almost felt like a self-parody.

Joey Hardin (Justin Lazard), the undercover cop from Line of Fire, returned in this episode. Sonny recruited him to go undercover in order to infiltrate Sebastian’s organization. Considering that Joey was a returning character and that there was a lengthy scene of Sonny asking if Joey felt confident enough to put his life on the line, it was kind of surprising that Joey didn’t really do much in this episode. One got the feeling that perhaps this was meant to be a backdoor pilot for a show featuring Joey as an undercover cop who could pass for a teenager. There’s nothing wrong with that, of course. Who wouldn’t want to keep a franchise going? But Joey ultimately felt like a red herring and a bit of a distraction.

This episode was a misfire.

I Watched Perry Mason: The Case Of The Ruthless Reporter (1991, Dir. by Christian I. Nyby II)

Posted on January 17, 2026 by Dazzling Erin

When arrogant news anchor Brett Huston (John James) is shot and killed, his co-anchor Gillian Pope (Kerrie Keane) is arrested and charged with the crime. It looks like an open-and-shut case because Brett was shot with Gillian’s gun. Luckily, Gillian is friends with Perry Mason (Raymond Burr) and soon Perry is on the case with Della Street (Barbara Hale) and Ken Malansky (William R. Moses).

Now this is how you do a Perry Mason movie! Brett’s murder is linked to a memo that he wrote in which he criticized the other members of the news team and argued that they should all be fired. All of the suspects are enjoyably eccentric. There’s a weatherman (Peter Jurasik) who wants to be a stand-up comedian. There’s the sports reporter (Philip Michael Thomas) who used and sold steroids. There’s the producer (Susan Sullivan), who was also Brett’s ex-wife. Brett even insulted the station manager (Jerry Orbach, who previously appeared as a different suspect in The Musical Murder). Ken, as usual, finds time for romance, this time with reporter Cassie Woodfield (Mary Page Keller) who appears to have someone trying to kill her as well. Along with a great cast of characters, this mystery had a solution that took me by surprise but which also made sense when I looked back on it. The final courtroom reveal was perfect. This is also probably the only Perry Mason film where the hours of a hamburger restaurant proved to be instrumental to the case.

The Case of the Ruthless Reporter was a good one!