Posted 30 August 2009 - 03:23 PM
Continuing on with the "Miami Vice" theme: Just watched "The Prodigal Son" (the two-hour Season 2 premiere) on DVD, and what I remembered from having watched it initially all those years ago was reinforced by watching it again: It starts out promisingly enough, but it's basically a one-hour episode dragged out into two hours of posturing. That was a big, red flag that signaled the on-again, off-again hiccuping quality of the writing, and style over substance (rather than style complementing substance) that would plague many of the subsequent episodes.
It was understandable, since Don Johnson became such a huge star, to feature him so much, but it was sad to see that stellar ensemble cast -- probably one of the best ever assembled for a TV series -- reduced to little more than glorified supporting players.
Sheena Easton is almost universally panned in her Season 4 role as Sonny's wife, Caitlin, and there is a part of me that wonders why on earth she was cast, considering all the possible singers who were available at the time. (Yes, I know she was pretty, sang a great Bond theme and had a few other hit singles, but was she really that big? Not as I recall.)
But having said that, I think she's unfairly targeted for the predictable way in which her character was shoehorned in by the writers. After all, we knew what was going to happen to her as soon as she said, "I do." But despite that, I ended up liking Easton's feistiness in the role, and even though Caitlin's death was telegraphed almost from the get-go, it also served as the catalyst for one of the best episodes in the series' history. It was something the series had skirted, but never completely addressed with the main characters: the idea of completely losing oneself in one's undercover identity. This time, instead of Sonny and Rico just talking about it, it really happened to Sonny . . . and was portrayed in a fairly believable manner, IMO.
Going into the fifth season, with Sonny returning to the fold, things seemed to start out well enough, but then it just seemed like no one really cared. And, by that time, maybe they didn't. Jan Hammer's music was sorely missed by this time, ratings had slipped dramatically, and, after tinkering with the formula so much, no one seemed to know what to do to "fix" the show. The hardest part of watching the two-hour series finale, "Freefall," was seeing the montage of clips from the series' glory days at the end, which reminded us how great the series had once been.
Still, having said that, "Miami Vice" is the quintessential mirror of the '80s in America, and overall offers up some of the best television not only of its time, but of all time.
