Characters make `Vegas' a good bet

Caan heads appealing cast of wry new drama

By Matthew Gilbert, Globe Staff, 9/22/2003

Midway through tonight's "Las Vegas" premiere, a high-powered casino hostess is offered a hotel suite with either a Strip or a mountain view. "Strip," she says without missing a beat. "Of course."

The characters in this new NBC drama are in love with Sin City, with its neon statue marquees and its all-you-can-eat buffets. They love the electricity, and they love the red-carpet lobbies of the world where daylight is irrelevant, mountains even more so. Of the current TV series set in Las Vegas, most notably CBS's "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation" and Lifetime's "Wild Card," "Las Vegas" shows the strongest affection for the nation's greatest gambling den. It's got Lost Wages in its DNA.

And that's not all that bodes well for the show, which premieres tonight at 10 on Channel 7. (It moves to its regular 9 p.m. slot next week.) The first episode of "Las Vegas" is a fast-paced but controlled hour that breezes through the introduction of seven-plus characters and a handful of plots without short-shrifting any of them. The cast is an appealingly motley crew, the cinematography is eye-catching, and the dialogue has moments of wit (even if the voice-over can be obtrusive). Of the 36 new network shows premiering this fall, "Las Vegas" is among the more promising.

The casting showboat is James Caan, who exudes the hard living you'd expect to find among the older denizens of the Vegas tables. He plays Big Ed Deline, a former CIA agent who now heads up the surveillance-security team at a casino hotel owned by a multibillion-dollar corporation. Caan has the biggest personality on the show, but he's balanced by a large ensemble, most importantly by Josh Duhamel, who plays his cool protege, Danny McCoy. The premiere focuses on the fireworks after Big Ed catches Danny sleeping with his daughter. Not only does the whole town find out, but Big Ed torments Danny by forcing him to visit with the strange Deline family.

"If I catch you looking at another girl," Big Ed tells him, "take a poison pill because I'm gonna kill you." "Welcome to the worst day of my life," Danny tells us in his voice-over.

It's a drama, but it's a wry drama, and "Las Vegas" in some ways recalls the single-camera sitcom "Scrubs." Both NBC shows make much of the dynamic between a newbie and his gruff boss, and both employ confessional voice-overs. Also, they both serve as windows into the quirky, inbred subcultures of people who work far too many hours. "Las Vegas" also has a touch of the 1980s series "Hotel," as the regular characters cope with casino-hotel guests of the week. Tonight, along with his personal problems, Danny has to bust a poker cheater, track a visiting street person who's wearing bunny slippers, and reel in a billionaire gambler known as "The Whale."

All of the characters on "Las Vegas" are seriously flawed, which makes them potentially interesting. Big Ed is an egomaniac, and Danny's too slick and cynical for his own good. Danny's best friend from childhood is a high-class escort named Mary (Nikki Cox), who gives him advice in between "dates." Big Ed's daughter, Delinda (Molly Sims), is a wild child who compulsively lies to the men in her life. She's bound to cause big trouble in future episodes. And the new casino hostess, Samantha (Vanessa Marcil), is flagrantly ruthless as she climbs her way up and over Danny.

Will "Las Vegas" come up with challenging surveillance plots every week? And will the ongoing story lines -- notably one about Danny's brother -- manage to be as stimulating as the show's look? It's definitely worth a gamble.

Matthew Gilbert can be reached at gilbert@globe.com.