Miami Vice, available here as a DVD box set, helped define the fashion and music of the period while simultaneously maintaining a high quality police drama standard.
The cops. The cars. The clothes. Set against the seamy and steamy Miami underworld, Miami Vice allows you to ride shotgun with suave cops Sonny Crockett and Ricardo Tubbs as they battle a never-ending gallery of criminals, drug dealers, and lowlifes.
The show is famous for its pastel colors and bright south Florida settings, which serve to counteract the sleaze its main characters often had to deal with. Sonny and Rico are two cops who work undercover for the Miami Police Department. They must balance their myriad personal problems with the difficulty of being undercover in some of Miami's most rotten criminal businesses. Luckily, upbeat '80s music, and their own personal sense of cool, help.