Las Vegas – Season Two (NBC)
Picture: B-
Sound: B- Extras: C Episodes: B-
Picking up on its second season, which is not that much
different than the first, NBC’s somewhat ambitious Las Vegas, which
launched in 2003. The show was set up
as a flashy answer to the now-classic The Sopranos and it was sold as if
it were Casino to that series’ as Goodfellas, the two key Martin
Scorsese films of the 1990s in the Gangster genre. They even landed James Caan to play the man who runs the casino,
but the series ultimately comes across as a cyber-update of the old Robert
Urich series Vegas, minus Dan Tanner.
Caan would actually be in a more powerful role like Tony Curtis was
later in that series.
Though this is not loaded with actors of the past ala The
Love Boat, this does have stars here and there, with the first season
logging up the likes of semi-regular Cheryl Ladd and Pat Harrington. Ladd returns this season in some of the
following episodes:
1) Have You
Ever Seen The Rain?
2) The
Count Of Montecito
3) Blood Is
Thicker
4) Catch Of
the Day
5) Good Run
Of Bad Luck (with George Hamilton)
6) Games
People Play
7) Montecito
Lancers
8) Two Of A
Kind
9) Degas
Away With It (with Alec Baldwin)
10) Silver Star
11) My Beautiful Launderette
12) When You Got It, You Got It
13) When You Got To Go, You Got To Go
14) Sperm Whales & Spearmint Rhinos
15) The Lie Is Cast
16) Whale Of A Time
17) Can You See What I See?
18) Tainted Love (with
Dean Cain)
19) To Protect & Serve Manicotti
20) One Nation, Under Surveillance
21) Hit Me!
22) Hide & Sneak
23) Letters, Lawyers & Loose Women
24) Magic Carpet Fred
25) Centennial
We skipped actors playing themselves, as that is such a
cliché in any film or TV series with Las Vegas involved. The Bond producers were smart to cut such a
scene with Sammy Davis, Jr. as himself in Diamonds Are Forever. That was 1971, the classical Vegas. Though Casino announces the death of
that old Vegas, this show almost sets up regional electric blackouts protesting
that Vegas is alive and still dirty, though I never totally believed that. The adult mall it tries to portray is still
a mall and this Uncut & Uncensored version is nothing shocking or as
blunt as it could be. Most obvious
evidence of this has women constantly taking their tops off and never showing
their bare frontal chests. I am not
convinced. What Las Vegas does
do is reinvent and try to re-mythologize the city of sin, but in some strange
way it seems already dated, so overzealous to be classical network TV. At least it is amusing at its best and Caan
saves this show from becoming formula with mannequin actors.
The anamorphically enhanced 1.78 X 1 image is sometimes a
tad soft, while the whole show is obsessed with sped-up and ultra-swift
editing, but the color is consistent throughout and the image quality is
usually solid for a new production. The
Dolby Digital 5.1 mix is punchy, often more than it needs to be but is not too
bad. Extras included on DVD 3 a VIP
segment with actual “high rollers” and a blooper reel, but that’s all. Try the first season and if you like it,
you’ll like this one too.
- Nicholas Sheffo
