Miami Vice: Season 03  (1986)

Theatrical Release Information:
Miami Vice: Season 03

Season Three of the too-hip-for-the-room crime series Miami Vice opens with a bang as the beloved Ferrari of Dade County undercover vice cop Sonny Crockett (Don Johnson) is accidentally blown up. This, however, proves easier to take than the jolt delivered to Crockett's partner Ricardo Tubbs (Philip Michael Thomas) in a later episode, in which Tubb's mercurial ex-partner Izzy Moreno (Martin Ferrero) frames him on a kidnapping charge. Nor are the two cops' colleagues spared anxiety this season, as witness the shock and awe experience by Det. Gina Calabrese (Sandra Santiago) is handed evidence that her current lover is an IRA terrorist, in an episode featuring a young Liam Neeson. The worst is reserved for Det. Larry Zito (John Diehl), a regular since the series' inception, when Zito is abruptly killed in the line of duty in the two-part episode "Down for the Count". This installment also upholds the Miami Vice tradition of showcasing quirky guest stars, in this instance boxing promoter Don King. Other prominent players showing up this season include Laurence Fishburne as a corrupt prison guard in "Walk Alone", Willie Nelson as the bedraggled title character in "El Viejo", which also features Steve Buscemi; Stanley Tucci as an adoption racketeer in "Baby Blues"; Wesley Snipes as a smooth hoodlum named Silk in "Street Wise"; andHang S. Ngor, the former Cambodian doctor whose real-life persecution at the hands of the Pol Pot regime were re-enacted in the theatrical feature The Killing Fields, as a Vietnamese detective in "Duty and Honor". This last-named episode also introduces Helena Bonham-Carter as Theresa, a heroin-addicted doctor with whom Crockett briefly falls in love. Also: John Leguizamo returns as the slimy head of the Calderon crime family in "The Afternoon Plane"; onetime Star Trek-er George Takei is seen along with Miami Vice star Don Johnson's then-wife Melanie Griffith in "By Hooker By Crook"; future Oscar winner Benicio del Toro pays his acting dues as a minor heavy in "Everybody's in Showbiz"; and the great Dutch actor Jeroen Krabbe figures prominently in the Season Three finale, "Heroes of the Revolution." ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide