TV Review: Vegas 1.1, Pilot

rating: 2.5

Vegas begins its run on CBS with a shot of Dennis Quaid playing cowboy; we're reliably informed that it's 1960s Vegas and we're left to wonder why the future hot-spot isn't starting to gleam and dazzle yet. That's when an airplane soars through the skies, frightening Quaid's cattle off and pissing the cowboy off to no end. Quaid plays Ralph Lamb, a rancher who was once a valued member of the Deputy's Force and a war vet. He's brought on to a murder case after the Mayor quickly decides that this is hardly a mission for his trusty police force. Lamb doesn't need much coercing so long as he gets those planes to change routes, a form of motivation that becomes decreasingly prevalent throughout the unfocused Pilot episode. Everything comes together wonderfully easily and there's very little standing in Lamb's way. The one bright spark of the episode comes in the form of Vincent Savino, a suave businessman whose hands are dirtier than he cares to let on. Played by The Shield's Michael Chiklis, Savino is a short-tempered yet charismatic antagonist and it's clear from the final moments of the episode that he's a dedicated guy, and his new target just happens to be Lamb, who in the space of 45-minutes, has made the move from rancher to Deputy to Sheriff; one hell of a promotion. The show has been created by Nicholas Pileggi, famed for his Goodfellas screenplay, and so the hype and buzz around it was well justified. Based on a true tale from the 1960s, Vegas has potential. It may be constructed rather lethargically and allow its larger plot points to slot in quite conveniently but it has a brain. It takes a police-procedural approach and does its very best to twist it around, allowing it to fit the context of 1960s Vegas. There's a lot of small touches which harken back to the period it's set in; for example, the bathroom doors displaying segregation between white and black people and the buzz about Vegas, and what it can become. Dennis Quaid is a reliable actor and he's not given a meaty portion here; sure he has a lot of lines but nothing too emotive, nothing really pushing him on. I don't get his motivation for taking on all these murder cases as he's already been told by side-kick/DA Katherine (Carrie Anne-Moss) that he can forget having the planes re-routed. Along for the ride are his team, consisting of his younger brother (Jason O'Mara) and his son Dixon (Taylor Handley), a womanising hot-head who is already a lot more interesting than any of his family. There's a lot to come from this show and it's worth sticking around for Chiklis's scene-stealing performances as well as his newly discovered feud with Quaid's cowboy-sheriff. The writers have done their job at setting everything up in place for the rest of the story to be unveiled and it's impressive the way they manage to fit it into a CBS schedule. This show could have really broken boundaries if picked up on a cable channel such as FX, yet it's being shown on CBS, the same network as The Big Bang Theory for instance, and so there is a lot to be sacrificed. No one is going to be burnt alive or be shown snorting cocaine; the show won't be able to push the audience into a visceral experience such as that one but once they find a way around that, and they made good strides in the Pilot, it will work. As Vegas, the city, continues to grow, so does the power of the men operating in and around it. Savino and Lamb, Chiklis and Quaid; it works well, just perhaps lacks a bit in execution. On to next week...