The Greatest TV Pilots Of All Time

Miami Vice

When the Miami Vice pilot aired in 1984, it captured the spirit of the era. The two-hour pilot used vivid imagery, like the grill of a Ferarri as it races down the strip, to tell a distinctly ‘80s story. The crime drama follows Crockett and Tubbs, two undercover cops who live for their jobs, as they team up to take down a Columbian drug dealer.

Don Johnson, who played James “Sonny” Crockett, told Rolling Stone about how he got the role: “I had auditioned for the pilot, which got pushed, and I said, To hell with it, I’m going to shoot this independent movie that just so happened to be shooting in Miami… I was sailfishing… off the coast of Stewart, Florida one day, and I got a call ‘ship to shore,’ which was pretty rare back then. The captain said, ‘Hey Don, it’s your agent,’ and I said, ‘Well tell him to [expletive] off, I’ve got a sailfish on the line.’ [Laughs] So I boated the sailfish, and when I called up my agent and he said, ‘Hey, [NBC President] Brandon Tartikoff wants you to come in.”