Miami Beach in 1959, a gorgeous resort hotel, glamour, sub tropical weather, supper clubs, Sinatra, gangsters, the Kennedy era, the Cuban revolution, Danny Houston - what could go wrong? This show had the potential to be a memorable seven season fixture, but instead it missed the mark. Although they got the dresses and style right, everyone drank liquor at all hours of the day and smoked like chimneys, Playboy Magazine style, like many shows with period settings made by people who were not born then, the errors stood out and spoiled the mood. Just one example: I was in my 20's then and it was an exciting time, but I do not recall EVER hearing anyone using F___ and definitely not C___ in mixed company. NEVER, NEVER, NEVER. It was absolutely not done, yet seems to crop up a lot in modern shows set in the mid 20th century. A woman using such language was fired from her job on the spot, deemed unfit company and ostracized from then on. Neither was sex ever talked about as frankly as depicted in today's shows. If it was discussed at all, and never in mixed company, euphemisms were used. In the era just before the contraceptive pill, unmarried couples were not very sexually active, but you would never guess that from today's TV.
Apart from that little gripe my biggest problem with the show is that it was boring and lacked humour. None of the one-note characters had any redeeming features which would have made them likable. It was one long depressing descent into depravity. Ike Evans was a shady character despite claiming to be straight. His wife eventually left him due to being disappointed with his shady side, but went to his son who was even worse. Ben Diamond was an unrelenting psychopath. Even Tony Soprano cracked a joke now and then and you felt sympathy for him. We never saw one one redeeming feature in Ben, no anonymous gift to a sick child whose mother could not afford life saving hospital treatment. Not one anonymous gift to an orphanage. Not even a pet cat or dog! Just an evil sexually perverted psychopath 24/7. Corny I know, but Danny Houston is an excellent actor and could have injected some sympathy for the devil. Everyone and his brother were corrupt and on the take, which is not the way it is in real life.
The other problem was that the show as a whole was too focused on the hotel at the cost of other juicy story lines. The Cuban revolution could have featured much more prominently as an ongoing secondary story line. Heck, it was THE major event of the decade with ongoing repercussions more than 50 years later, and we could have used scenes showing what led to the revolution, why it happened and why the new government was adamant that the gangsters running the casinos and corrupt businessmen would never be allowed back. To be sure American companies and gangsters were angered at the loss of their lucrative investments, but the Cuban people did not see it that way. We should have seen the revolution from both sides. The events in Cuba were briefly mentioned in passing, but that was it. The back story of Victor and Maria should have featured in at least two or three full episodes. All we got was a couple of sentences in passing and a brief night time scene of Maria's unsuccessful attempt to leave Cuba. Everyone's back story would have helped flesh out the characters. We could have learned a lot more about Vera and why she did not have the slightest Spanish accents despite being from Cuba. How did Victor end up in Miami Beach before the revolution? What had brought Judi Silver, the platinum blonde sex worker, to Miami Beach? Why did the hotel not have any black staff? Why were the staff predominantly Cuban BEFORE the exodus? So much wasted potential!
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