Miami Vice: Season Three

There's two schools of thought. The first is that this is the best season of Miami Vice before the marked drop-off in quality of Seasons 4 and 5. Then there are those that will attest that this is the very season where the show "jumped the shark". The truth is that Season 3 removed a lot of the more flashy fun and excitement of the first two seasons and replaced it with a more darker, morbid show.

The outcome: ratings dropped and fans bemoaned the changes that robbed the show of the over-the-top glitz and flashiness in lieu of a more realistic cop procedure show. You can't please all of the people all of the time. There are some great guests smattered across these 24 episodes, including Liam Neeson doing an Irish revolutionary years before he would tackle Michael Collins, and Benicio Del Toro and the soon to be Mrs Don Johnson of Melanie Griffith in some of the later episodes. If you loved Seasons 1 and 2 for its typically 80's sensibilities you may be disappointed.

Released 14th May 2007 by Universal Pictures/Playback.

Written by Simon Cole.