Saving Hope

Miami Vice has been described as "the first cop show for the MTV generation." Brilliantly capturing the mood, the style, the rhythm, the pulsations, the bright electric colors, and the garish glitz of the early '80s, the weekly, 60-minute series was just a much an elongated music video (with a Jan Hammer score) as it was a crime drama -- and it set the standard for the scores of copycat series that followed in its wake. Set in (where else?) Miami, the series starred Don Johnson and Philip Michael Thomas as hard-nosed Miami-Dade PD vice detectives Sonny Crockett and Ricardo Tubbs. Crockett was a Ferrari-driving fashion trendsetter (how many millions of the series' young male fans emulated Sonny's no-socks, no-shave "look"?), who lived on a sailboat called St. Vitus' Dance with his pet gator, Elvis. Tubbs hailed from New York, and had come to Florida to track down the drug dealer responsible for his brother's murder. Like most such salt-and-pepper TV detective teams, Crockett and Tubbs did not always see eye to eye on details and procedure, but when they worked together as undercover cops in the sleazy underbelly of the Florida resort community, they almost invariably got results. And the criminal element -- which on this series consisting primarily of drug lords, white slavers, and illicit arms traders -- was well advised to stay out of their way. Though Sonny and Ricardo were pretty much the whole show, a few supporting characters were also worth noting, especially Edward James Olmos as the boys' mercurial superior officer Lt. Martin Castillo, Olivia Brown and Saundra Santiago as feisty female cops Trudy Joplin and Gina Navarro, and John Diehl as Larry Zito, Crockett and Tubbs' obligatory "orthodox" co-worker Calabrese. Making occasional appearances were Belinda Montgomery as Sonny's ex-wife, Caroline, and Sheena Easton as wife number two (albeit briefly), Caitlin Davies. Except for a short 1988 story arc in which an amnesiac Sonny assumed his "undercover" identity as drug dealer Sonny Burnett, things moved at a steady and reliable clip throughout the series' four-season run. Maybe it is true that series producer Michael Mann favored style over substance -- but what style! Miami Vice was seen on NBC from September 16, 1984, to July 26, 1989.

Three-parter about the 1978 slaying of a multimillionaire.

Two women became unlikely partners in a detective agency that they jointly inherited from their ex-husband, an eccentric PI who met with foul play. The women were polar opposites, one was a freelance photographer and former socialite, the other a professional musician and amateur pickpocket.

This medical drama relates the professional and personal ups and downs of three nurses at a New Jersey hospital. They include an adept, hardened nurse who's returned from a tour of duty in Iraq; her swaggering gal pal and colleague; and a naive rookie.

This weekend-morning fantasy series for kids largely took place in a sinister-looking prep school called Blake Holsey High. Because of the preponderance of curious phenomena that occurred within the walls of the school -- from spontaneously combustible desks to mysteriously disappearing freshmen -- the place was known as "Black Hole High" to its students. The individual episodes dealt with the efforts of five teenaged detectives, members all of the school's science clubs, to solve the various paranormal mysteries occurring on campus. The main characters included the analytical Josie (Emma Taylor Isherwood), the overachieving Corrine (Shadia Simmons), the popular but strangely secretive Vaughn (Robert Clark), precocious conspiracy theorist Lucas (Michael Seater), and the cheerfully geeky Marshall (Noah Reid). In keeping with the prosocial edicts of American network television, the series was careful to balance its science-fiction content with a healthy dose of science fact. Filmed at Auchmar Estate, a 150-year-old former monastery near Hamilton, Ontario, Strange Days at Blake Holsey High debuted October 5, 2002, as part of the three-hour Discovery Kids on NBC Saturday-morning programming block.

A formula cop drama about a female chief of detectives whose job is complicated by resentment from her male colleagues. The San Francisco-based crime show was one of four rotating series that made up the 'NBC Sunday Mystery Movie.' The other three were 'Columbo,' 'McCloud' and 'McMillan and Wife.' Amy Prentiss's young daughter, Jill, was played by future Oscar winner Helen Hunt.