They weren't really undercover were they? I'm not saying that they were obvious, but it was more like a couple of cops that dressed and drove around in clothes and cars that would stand out in any crowd.
But who cares, right, the how was all flash and style and it really needed to be. It was a police show that tried to epitomize everything that 80s pop culture thought was cool.
But then it came on when I was 4 and I remember watching the last two seasons live with my parents so there might be a nostalgia component to it. But even then, when people think of the 80s, they think of Miami Vice. That's how they picture they style, it's how they picture the music, and that goes straight to the logo.
It positively stinks of the 80s, and it stinks of all the things that we want to remember about the 80s.
The only way to describe the show then was cool. And now, in 2020, the only way to describe the show today is, well, cool.
It's dated to a decade, it's dated to an era in time and even then the appeal lingers to the present. Not many things can achieve that feeling of dated and appeal at the same time. Miami Vice can, and we still see it's influence reverberating in pop culture today from games like GTA to patroons like Archer, it's spoofed and paid homage to with such regularity that people who never saw the show can recognize it instantly.
The appeal is lasting and the entertainment that came with it outlasted the show by generations.