Miami Vice captures the glitter and glamour embodied by Crockett and Tubbs and offers students an anatomy of a ground-breaking work in the police procedural genre.

• Explores Miami Vice's combination of disparate influences (MTV, film noir, soap opera, 'high concept' action films) as well as the social, cultural and industrial moments when it burst onto the network
• Introduces readers to major components of televisual analysis--style, storytelling, the television show as commodity and ideological critique--that illustrate the show’s unique features
• Provides a model for students' own assessment of other shows, and confirms precisely how--and on what terms--Miami Vice redefined the police drama and an era

James Lyons is a Lecturer in Film Studies at the University of Exeter, where he researches and publishes in the area of contemporary American television. His publications include a co-edited collection Quality Popular Television (BFI Press, 2003), and two forthcoming book chapters on the Miami-set medical drama Nip/Tuck. he is also author of Selling Seattle: Representing the Contemporary American City (Wallflower Press, 2004).