Posted Tuesday, February 17, 2004 by Gene

Wow! This isn't insulting at all!
Alas, there comes a time in one's life when one's televised guilty pleasures cross a line and move into the realm of the utterly unwatchable. I fear that this is what has happened with me and the show Las Vegas. Already, I had been forced to accept that the entire security force consisted of two guys, that nobody ever slept ever, and that the show had clearly become Love Boat Las Vegas. (With Ed as the Captain, Danny as Gopher, Mike as Doc, Nessa as Isaac, and Mary, Delinda and Sam taking turns playing Julie. It works, really.) I was even learning to swallow some incredibly unsavory premises, such as the one a couple of weeks ago when a suicidal guest beat his depression by gambling until he wasn't suicidal any more, or last week when Jean-Claude Van Damme played himself and then got killed when a stunt that made no sense in the first place went awry. (Almost saving the show was the note at the end that "No Jean-Claude Van Dammes were hurt in the filming of this episode.")

But last night was the end. I can't swallow this any more.

The plot
In a set-up that really made no sense in the first place, Ed, Danny (the ONLY TWO SECURITY GUYS IN THE HOTEL) and Sam hop aboard the Montecito's private jet to visit their casino in New Orleans, trying to chase down a "whale" who owes the franchise $4.5 million.

Problem #1: there are no casinos in New Orleans. Riverboat gambling is legal, which is why there is a casino docked on the riverwalk there, but "Montecito New Orleans" is supposedly a casino on land.

We are introduced to the colorful gang that runs security there, including Dennis Hopper-- who is in charge and is clearly mailing it in-- his assistant and Danny counterpart A.J., who is an attractive woman, and his camera guy, Pops. The first time we see the "casino" (it's a soundstage, quite obviously) there is a big fistfight going on. This happens roughly every ten minutes in this "casino", because we all know Southerners like a good brawl. Or something. Choose your own insulting stereotype if you want, but save a few, because it gets a whole lot worse.

Problem #2: Extraordinarily, A.J. is the only person in New Orleans who is, based on her accent, FROM New Orleans, and she loses her accent halfway through the show. Pops has a basic Southern drawl. Hopper doesn't even try.

Within approximately fifteen minutes A.J. is trying to get into Danny's pants because-- and we will get more reminders later for the slow viewers-- Southerners have poor impulse control. She brings him to her family's secret party/barbecue/illegal card game to look for the guy they're there to find. To get there, they walk through a "swamp." (They don't even bother to call it a bayou.)

Problem #3: Go ahead, try and find a bayou on foot from the center of New Orleans.

We are introduced to A.J.'s "colorful" family, in the form of her three brothers. They are gigantic. One of them, I swear to god, is wearing blue overalls and a white T-shirt. It's L'il Abner. They don' like their sister gettin' all friendly 'n such with no city-folk, nossuh, an' they's gonna glare real long an' hard at anybody what put his hands on sis. When we meet Pops, Danny asks Hopper if Pops is Hopper's dad. "That's what he says," is the response. When Ed later asks Hopper if A.J. is related, he says "she might be." Do we get the point yet? Everybody from New Orleans is inbred! Hahaha! How CLEVER.

Oh, but we mustn't forget the voodoo priestess. Yes. In an effort to find the person they're looking for, Sam goes to a voodoo priestess (whose shop is INSIDE THE CASINO) for help. In order to divine the location of the guy Sam has to eat a dead rat. Hahaha!

They eventually find out that their guy is playing in a private game "somewhere in the French Quarter." Hopper finds out the location of the game by calling the mayor. (Because everyone in town is corrupt, and besides, he's probably related to the mayor too.) It turns out this private game is taking place during a very public party in a cemetary. Hahaha! There aren't any cemetaries in the French Quarter, or at least nothing the size of what they re-created on their show. In fact, the only open space large enough to approximate what they showed was Jackson Square, which not only has no headstones, but is about as "private" as City Hall.

Problem #4: Nobody-- not the show's producers, writers, director, film crew, actors-- went to New Orleans to film any of this show. Nor, it appears, have any of them EVER BEEN THERE. The external shots consist of stock footage of: a riverboat; and Bourbon Street during Mardi Gras. Everything is so embarrassingly obviously filmed in a studio you worry that at some point somebody is going to lean on something they aren't supposed to-- like a tombstone-- and it's going to just fall over. Just to drive home the point that they didn't enter the right area code for even a second, when it came time to showcase some "Authentic" area music, they had a performance by none other than that legendary New Orleans piano man, Little Richard.

To review
Folks from New Orleans are inbred hillbillies with poor impulse control, voodoo is a cottage industry, and the whole city is corrupt.

I guess this is what happens when your primary source material is Girls Gone Wild videos, the movies Southern Comfort and The Big Easy, and L'il Abner comics.

Meanwhile, in Las Vegas
Ten minutes of a wet T-shirt contest. I kid you not.

Spinoff possibilities
A couple of years ago CSI decided to have a road trip to Miami, and next season CSI: Miami was born. Las Vegas is one of the more popular shows on TV right now. I wonder if they're going to try and create a spinoff, and if so, if they'll consider visiting New Orleans beforehand.