DVD Release Date: June 26, 2007 (Universal Studios Home Video)
Color/1988-1989
MSRP: $59.98
Number of Discs: 5
Number of Episodes: 21
Running Time: 17 hours, 40 minutes
Total Run Time of Special Features: N/A
Languages, Subtitles, Closed Captioning: English;
English subtitles
Special Features: None
Introduction:
Crockett and Tubbs are back for one last battle
against the roughest and toughest lowlifes of Miami in
Season Five of Miami Vice! The fifth season winds down
the entire series all throughout the season, beginning
with Crockett believing he is on the “other side” (a
storyline that began at the end of the fourth season)
and essentially marking the point where he isn’t
interested in dealing with the hassles of being a vice
detective in Miami anymore!
We actually see less of Crockett and Tubbs working
together this season, and instead, we see them working
individually (or sometimes we don’t even see Crockett
or Tubbs on some of the cases) on cases and even get
to see Castillo working hard to get the bad guys.
Crockett has bigger concerns on his mind now besides
doing the best job he can on the vice squad, including
his own mental health and the well-being of his son.
But in any event, the fifth season, while markedly
different from the previous seasons, basically sets up
the entire ending for the series!
Memorable Episodes / Notable Guest Stars:
The final season begins where Season Four left off,
with Crockett believing he really is Sonny Burnett...
and possibly out to get his partner... in the episodes
“Hostile Takeover” and “Redemption in Blood.”
Aerosmith’s Steven Tyler guest stars in “Hostile
Takeover.” With Crockett recovering, it is time for a
vacation in “Bad Timing,” but will he really get a
vacation when he meets a girl at a bar that gets
kidnapped by homicidal maniacs? Tubbs and Castillo
intervene in a drug deal--against the advice of
government agents--in “Borrasca.” Something isn’t
quite right when a major cocaine dealer is set free in
“Fruit of the Poison Tree,” and Crockett and Tubbs are
determined to find out what that is.
Belinda Montgomery makes her final appearance as
Caroline in “To Have and To Hold,” where Crockett’s
son is getting in trouble in school--and Crockett is
determined to not have his son’s fighting at school
have him turn into the kind of scum he gets off of the
streets in Miami. Rita Moreno guest stars as an
anti-drug congresswoman whose son is involved in the
theft of drugs in “Miami Squeeze.” Tubbs gets invited
to dinner with a reformed killer--but how reformed is
he? Find out in “The Cell Within.” Castillo encourages
Crockett and Tubbs to let a vigilante group of former
police officers join them in “Over the Line.” Is this
really wise? In “Leap of Faith,” a professor that has
been creating a designer drug suddenly has students
disappearing--and it isn’t pure coincidence. The
series ends with “Freefall,” where Crockett and Tubbs
face one of their most challenging tasks ever. Will
they succeed?
Packaging:
Hmm, this packaging looks a little too similar to the
packaging from the previous seasons… which looks great
when you have all five sets sitting on your shelf!
Basically, we (again) have an outer box with Crockett
and Tubbs above the Miami Vice logo, then on the
bottom another snapshot of Crockett and Tubbs in front
of Crockett’s car. The digipak inside has the same
artwork, and just like seasons 3 and four, lists all
of the episodes (along with episode descriptions) on
the box. The set once again uses five single sided
discs that just have the Miami Vice logo on each disc.
Disc 1 contains episodes 1-4, Disc 2 contains episodes
5-9, Disc 3 contains episodes 10-13, Disc 4 contains
episodes 14-18, and Disc 5 contains episodes 19-21.
Unfortunately, since the set uses a three panel
digipak, this means that Discs 2 overlaps with Disc 3
and that Disc 4 overlaps with Disc 5, but this isn’t a
major inconvenience.
Menu Design and Navigation:
Here we are five seasons later and the menus are
barely changed from the menus that were used on the
first season set! Consistency is always a good thing,
and this set does a good job of that. Just like every
other season, the main menu has the options of Play
All, Episode Index, and Subtitles. It is all
self-explanatory, with the Episode Index presenting
you with a screen with all of the episodes from that
disc (when you select the episode, the episode plays,
there is no episode description or scene selection
menu) and Subtitles giving you an option to turn on
the English subtitles. There are chapters placed at
pretty much all of the appropriate places within the
episodes, but I can’t understand why there isn’t one
placed right before the opening credits! Oh well...
Video and Audio Quality:
The video on these Miami Vice sets improves with each
season, but I don’t think that is because Universal is
doing a better job on these DVD sets each season, but
rather because these are newer episodes... and newer
film holds up better than older film. There is still
the issue of occasional grain, but it is nowhere near
as bad as it was for Season One. The audio sounds
great for a show this age, and is presented in Dolby
Digital 5.1 surround sound (but, if you are an average
viewer that doesn’t have the fanciest audio system for
my television, that won’t mean much more than “it is
in stereo”), and although it isn’t displayed as
prominently on the package this time, the original
music is all said to be included (I checked a handful
of episodes and found every song that should be there
intact). English subtitles are available for those
that need them.
The episodes appear to be unedited, with runtimes
running roughly in the 46-49 minute range. Exact
runtimes are as follows:
Disc 1:
1. Hostile Takeover (46:15)
2. Redemption in Blood (48:52)
3. Heart of Night (47:51)
4. Bad Timing (47:32)
Disc 2:
5. Borrasca (47:24)
6. Line of Fire (46:53)
7. Asian Cut (48:38)
8. Hard Knocks (46:03)
9. Fruit of the Poison Tree (47:52)
Disc 3:
10. To Have and to Hold (48:35)
11. Miami Squeeze (48:39)
12. Jack of All Trades (48:15)
13. The Cell Within (49:27)
Disc 4:
14. The Lost Madonna (49:21)
15. Over the Line (47:59)
16. Victims of Circumstance (48:18)
17. World of Trouble (47:59)
18. Miracle Men (48:39)
Disc 5:
19. Leap of Faith (48:37)
20. Too Much, Too Late (48:37)
21. Freefall (01:34:54)
Special Features:
No special features... one of Universal’s biggest
sellers on DVD and no special features. Shame on
Universal for that. Maybe if they release a “complete
series” collection or something in the future, they
will include some special features.
Final Comments:
Overall, the way that Universal has presented the
episodes on the DVDs has been great, and this set is
no exception. It is extremely disappointing, however,
that Universal admits that this is one of their
biggest sellers on DVD, yet they failed to provide any
special features at all for seasons 2-5! It is somehow
fitting how this series ended in the 1988-89 season…
it was such an 80s show (even in the final season) and
just wouldn’t have been the same had it continued into
the 90s. The changes that took place this season
almost gave the show a totally different feeling from
the earlier seasons. We see less of Crockett and Tubbs
working together (sometimes there are episodes where
one or both of them barely appear at all, with
storylines focusing more on other characters) and the
storylines become much more serious in this season
than they ever really were in the past, with very few
of those lighter moments such as the ones seen in
earlier seasons. Plus, the whole music style, while
still great, is nothing like the much better music of
the time when the series began in 1984. With all that
aside, however, this is another great season of a
great show, but those that are more accustomed to the
earlier seasons must be aware of the fact that the
feeling of the series is totally different in this
season.
