Alias vs Miami Vice

Since I was reminded of this recently, here are a few of the reasons why I keep maintaining Alias is a 20 year update of Miami Vice:

1. Both shows heavily feature famous guest stars, from Quentin Tarantino to G. Gordon Liddy. In the case of Miami Vice, a lot of the episodes feature then unknown actors who later turned out to be more famous than anybody actually starring on the show, like "Larry" Fishburne and Bruce Willis.

2. The distinctive use of color, bright primary colors on Alias in contrast to Miami Vice's pastels, like the green lit alley where Vaughn debriefed Sydney when she was undercover, and Lt. Castillo's pale green office.

3. Very prominent use of a wide range of popular music from, often going back to the same eras. And occasionally the same song: in "Definitely Miami" a woman lures Crockett into a trap by cavorting around in a royal blue bathing suit, in "Double Agent", Sydney saunters out of the pool in her royal blue bathing suit to lure a somebody into a trap, both times to the same Ted Nugent song.

4. Michael Vartan's permanent 5 o'clock shadow is a clear homage to Sonny Crockett.

5. On Alias, Dixon's undercover roles were always Jamaican or African, and really hammered it home by having him ostentatiously dress the part. On Miami Vice, when Tubbs went undercover he was usually Jamaican, but made the occasional foray into South African revolutionary.

6. At least through the first couple seasons of Alias (and I've only seen the first two and a half), Sydney was living 24-7 undercover and constantly dealt with the resulting strain on her life. Crockett went home at night to his 24-7 cover as drug dealer "Sonny Burnett", who lived on a sailboat and drove a ferrari. On both shows, this situation strained credibility, as for instance nobody ever noticed that Sonny Burnett, who had a Florida Gators mascot living on his boat, looked a lot like college football star James "Sonny" Crockett, and he arrested like 1,000 people without blowing his cover in Miami.

7. Vaughn and Crockett both had a chubby guy they called in for back-up (Weiss and Switek).