Entertainment
How A Blockbuster 80s Thriller Changed TV Forever With Phil Collins' Drums
By Jonathan Klotz
| Published
The Golden Age of prestige television started when Tony Soprano first walked into Dr. Melfi’s office, but the groundwork for The Sopranos was laid a decade earlier. On September 16, 1984, Michael Mann introduced the world to Miami Vice.
So much of the 80s style and culture can be traced back to the series’ impact, from the cars to the men’s wear, but its lasting legacy has been to show that, at its best, television can be better than the movies. And it’s thanks to Phil Collins.
The Greatest Drums In Music History
Before Miami Vice debuted, television was considered secondary to movies. On the big screen, fans could see larger-than-life stories and characters, such as Star Wars, Indiana Jones, and Jaws, which were reserved for cinema. Television was where stars who couldn’t make it in the movies went. You could tell by the vast difference between their budgets. Even the best-looking television series looked inferior to the movies, until that is, Michael Mann turned a TV pilot into a music video.
“My Brother’s Keeper,” the pilot episode for Miami Vice, set the stakes for the rest of the series to follow. Crockett (Don Johnson) is coping with the loss of his partner when he’s paired up with Tubbs (Philip Michael Thomas) in an undercover sting to take down the ruthless drug lord, Calderone (Miguel Pinero). It’s standard police procedural stuff today, but in 1984, it was a new level of grit and darkness under the flashy exterior of cool cars, bright lights, and designer shades.
No sequence summed it up better than the ending, when Corckett and Tubs get in their car to confront Calderone while “In the Air Tonight” by Phil Collins starts up. Shots of the car going down the road, the two detectives are silent as each is lost in their own thoughts, and then Crockett gets out of the car to place a phone call. All episode, he’s been bothered by his relationship with his estranged wife, but she picks up, and he asks a simple question: “It was real?”
As he hangs up, the drums kick in. You know exactly what drums. And right there, Miami Vice arrived, and television has never been the same. Over 40 years later, and guys still blast “In the Air Tonight” while driving around at night.
A Movie On A TV Budget
The Miami Vice pilot was a two-hour television event, which is why the production team pulled out all the stops to make it a hit. Licensing music wasn’t common back then, and not only did “My Brother’s Keeper” use “In the Air Tonight,” but it also included “Miss You” by The Rolling Stones, and “Somebody Watching Me” by Rockwell. Recognizable music was the key ingredient to turn stretches of the episode into music videos.
Beyond the soundtrack and award-winning cinematography, Miami Vice was a breath of fresh air for its dark, cynical tone. Sonny Crockett was a cop on the edge, watching his life slowly fall apart around him, while Ricardo Tubbs didn’t only want to avenge his brother’s death at the hands of Calderon, he was consumed by it. This was a far cry from the sunny shores of Hawaii 5-0, or the cheese of Cagney & Lacey, Hart to Hart, and The A-Team.
Miami Vice didn’t look, sound, or play out (the villain wins) like any of its contemporaries. By the time “My Brother’s Keeper” came to an end, the bar for success in television was raised to a nearly unattainable standard. Dark heroes were in, licensed music was expected, and grittier storylines replaced the fairytale endings.
Entertainment
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Entertainment
BookCon 2026: Authors Rachel Reid, Stephanie Archer talk hockey romance and how it could change the sport for the better
With the fervor of Heated Rivalry, there’s a fierce desire among book readers for even more hockey. On Sunday, April 19, at BookCon, the “You Had Me at Hockey: A Look at One of Sports Romance’s Hottest Genres”, authors Rachel Reid (Heated Rivalry, Game Changer), Emily Rath (Pucking Around), Ngozi Ukazu (Check Please), Stephanie Archer (The Wild Card), and Kate Cochrane (Wake Up, Nat & Darcy) were joined by moderator and fellow author Bal Khabra (Collide) to discuss the rise and continued success of hockey romance.
Khabra kicked off the panel, asking just how hockey became so popular. Ukazu joked that it was as if the genre “escaped containment,” like when the Omegaverse went mainstream, while Reid described the mystery around hockey, saying, “what [the players] are doing seems impossible.” Archer also added that the sport itself is exceptionally hard on the body, and the celebrity around players, especially in Canada, is fun to play with.
But there’s more to the genre’s success than the tropes. “It has to be said,” Rath argued, “that the cornerstone of why this is so popular in publishing is racism.” She went on to say that straight, white women’s voices dominated the romance genre for so long, pointing out that hockey is also the whitest sport. Among major league sports, the NHL is the most predominantly white. In 2022, ESPN reported that 83.6% of league players and staff were white, compared to the NFL, where 25-27% of players are white, or the NBA, where white players make up 17.5% of the league.
Mashable Top Stories
Zooming into the genre, the authors also spoke about the writing process. They dove into the deeper aspects of their work, even the smut. Rath said, “I think the least sexy thing you can ever do is write a sex scene.” A similar sentiment came up during Reid’s Saturday panel, where she described using the sex scenes to further the emotional arc. When readers ask authors if they can skip the spice, Archer says of her own books, “No, you can’t skip the sex scenes. You’re missing so much character development if you don’t go on the journey with them.”
The panel turned to the future, too. Many of the authors write BIPOC and queer representation into their novels, in a genre that often centers on whiteness and homophobia. “We’re writing the world as we want it to be,” Rath said.
Reid has found that there is progress toward a future that these authors and their readers want to see, saying that the NHL is interested in working with them. “People on the inside, they really want to work toward change and want to make this happen.”
With the hockey fandom at an all-time high, there’s a whole team behind these authors ready to drive change.
Entertainment
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