Friday, July 22, 2005 | 5 a.m.
WEEKEND EDITION
July 23-24, 2005
What: "Las Vegas."
When: 9 p.m. Mondays.
Where: KVBC Channel 3 (NBC).
Years ago during a trip to Las Vegas, Gary Scott Thompson had a vision of a dead body in the desert just 50 yards from the Strip.
Fifteen years later, "The Fast and the Furious" screenwriter's "vision" served as the opening shot for a new prime-time soap opera about a Las Vegas casino surveillance team, the casino's employees and many of its colorful guests.
Featuring a cast of beautiful people, is the "Dynasty" meets "CSI" series a guilty pleasure? Sure.
Considering that network TV is saturated with crime and courtroom dramas, largely unfunny sitcoms and reality shows about phobias, castaways and matchmakers, "Las Vegas" is also a welcome change.
Having debuted in September 2003, "Las Vegas" has been one of the few bright spots in NBC's otherwise dreary post-"Friends" prime-time schedule. Despite stiff competition, the Monday night series regularly appears in the top 20 of the Nielsen ratings.
Fans of the series, however, know "Las Vegas" is in for major changes this fall.
The fictional Montecito Resort & Casino was blown up in the show's season cliffhanger, and Lara Flynn Boyle recently joined the cast as the new casino's owner.
In a recent phone interview from his Los Angeles office, Thompson discussed with the Las Vegas Sun the upcoming changes to the show he created and executive produces, why his series has been so successful and how James Caan joined the "Las Vegas" cast.
Las Vegas Sun: How did you get the idea for "Las Vegas"?
Gary Scott Thompson: I'm a huge degenerate Vegas fan. The first time I went to Vegas I was 16, I believe. I was driving through. I actually played keno and craps and didn't get caught. And then when I moved back from New York to (Los Angeles), during the Writers Guild Strike in 1988, I would see these bargain deals to go to Vegas in the heat of the summer. So it would be $70 to go to the D.I. (Desert Inn) for three days and three nights and eat at the buffet. There was a bunch of us who would go and drive out and have a great time.
On one of those trips I had this vision, sort of, of a dead body in the desert. And we pan up and there's the Strip 50 yards away. That was what ended up in the pilot, that opening shot, but I couldn't ever figure out what that went to. So I had that thing in my head for 15 years.
I tried to turn it into a novel at one point. I tried to turn it into a play at one point. I just couldn't figure out what it was. And then NBC, who I had developed with and had a relationship with, called and said, "Hey, we want to do a Vegas TV show with your 'Fast and Furious' bent." And that dead body flipped through my head and, instantaneously, almost the entire pilot ripped through my head. And I said, "OK, I'll call you tomorrow." And that's how it happened.
Sun: "Las Vegas" has been a tremendous hit for the network. Were you surprised by the show's success?
GST: I don't want to say this because I will sound cocky, but no. Only because I thought it was something missing on TV.
Here's what's interesting about it. It does have something very closely in common with two other hit shows from this season, "Lost" and "Desperate Housewives." They're all fun, and that's been missing on TV. "Lost" is scary and crazy, but it's still fun. "Desperate Housewives" was fun, too. "Las Vegas" sort of paved the way for those fun shows that were sorely lacking on network TV.
(There's) just too many "CSIs," too many "Law & Orders," too many procedural dramas and everybody trying to duplicate them ... which was my pitch to NBC. I said I'll do a Las Vegas show, but I'm not doing one of these procedural things because I don't want to watch children raped anymore. I don't want to watch people get cut up. I get that in the news. I get that in the newspaper.
TV to me, what I grew up on, was always fun: "Charlie's Angels," "Dukes of Hazzard," "Starsky and Hutch," "Love Boat" and all that stuff. Even if I saw some of it in syndication, they still had a fun quality to them. And I think that sometimes we forget that we're supposed to be entertaining.
This is entertainment. My job is to entertain. I've done those really cool plays that make you cry and all that. No one saw them, but I've done them. First and foremost, I want to put something on that I want to watch, on Monday night or whatever night it may be, I want to grab a beer, kick back and watch something that's fun.
Sun: Do you think "Monday Night Football's" move from ABC to ESPN will benefit your show?
GST: It'll help us. There are less people who watch cable, but ABC is going to throw something else (on its Monday schedule), so there'll be more things to watch (Mondays).
The biggest thing that's going to help us is that "Sunday Night Football" comes back to NBC. So on Sunday night during the football game, they're going to promote the crap out of us. I defy any man in America watching "Sunday Night Football" to see the women on this show and not tune in on Monday night.
The flip side is the TiVo audience. We've got guys who watch "Monday Night Football" and TiVo "Las Vegas." I mean, big parties of people. And I keep saying, "Somebody get the ratings on TiVo because we're missing a huge portion of this audience." And they'll go, "Well, there's only 3 million TiVo watchers." Yeah, but 3 million people are TiVo-ing "Las Vegas." That's a lot.
Sun: Is it fair to consider "Las Vegas" a guilty pleasure?
GST: When we started, yeah, this was the biggest guilty pleasure of all. But now that the ratings are going through the roof, not just with us but with the other shows that I mentioned, it's no longer guilty pleasure; it's mainstream-viewing fare.
Sun: Lara Flynn Boyle recently joined the cast of the show.
GST: She's going to be the new owner of the Montecito.
Sun: Was it difficult getting her to join the cast?
GST: Nope. I said, "Do you want to do it?" and she said, "Yeah." She thought it was really cool.
Sun: With the addition of Boyle, and especially the fact the casino was blown up in the season finale, "Las Vegas" seems to be going through a major shake-up for the third season.
GST: Well it is. It made for a great season-ender, a cliff-hanger, last year. It allowed us to really relaunch the show, which is what's going to happen. For the season opener ... I've basically written a pilot. So if you've never seen this show before, you can tune in and you will not have missed anything, even though there's been 48 episodes already. And if you have (seen the show) and are a fan of the show, you will be caught up. It was a tough one to write, but it's catering to both audiences of our established viewers as well as ones trying to jump in fresh.
Getting NBC to relaunch ("Las Vegas") and to really put ad dollars behind it ... they said, "I need something new. What are you going to do?" I said, "OK, I'm going to blow up the casino, it's going to be completely new. I'm going to bring in a new owner and maybe a character or two aren't going to come back." And they went, "OK, now we'll relaunch you."
Sun: Making drastic changes to a show that's already popular, though, is pretty risky.
GST: It's extremely risky and yet, my contention has always been, the name of the show is "Las Vegas." People love Las Vegas, so they're going to tune in because it is Las Vegas. And yes, I know they love our characters. And anytime you bring in new people I guess it's always risky, (but) I think the bigger risk is waiting until it's too late to bring in the new people, when people have started not watching because it's just the same old, same old.
Sun: One of the initial buzz factors for the show was landing James Caan, who plays "Big" Ed Deline on the show. How did that happen?
GST: He read the script and liked it, which is always very appealing. We sat down together -- he just wanted to know who was behind this and what we're going to do. He just didn't want it to be, "Let's get the actor out there who'll bring us some good buzz and then not use him." He wanted to be part of the cast and work. And I said, "You definitely will." And that was pretty much it.
Once he was on (the show), Jimmy and I sat together and tailored the part a little bit more to him to really make it a Jimmy character.
Sun: Since the show revolves around a security team at a casino, do you get most of your story ideas from real-life casinos?
GST: Absolutely. When they find out who you are, they want to volunteer the stories. I like to hear the ones that they don't volunteer, because sometimes they change the stuff to make it sound a little better in hopes that it will get on the air.
Sun: Something unusual about "Las Vegas" is that extra scenes -- too steamy for network television -- are filmed for the DVD.
GST: Yeah, we do do that. I did that intentionally so that there would be extra footage on the DVD. I just knew from "The Fast and the Furious" that the extras really went a long way into selling the DVD. And I look at the DVD as a sales tool to get people to watch the show.
There were a lot of DVDs bought for the first season. We're putting out a second season. The DVD release is really close to our season premiere, somewhere around Sept. 19. And we're also putting out a soundtrack around the same time, too, of songs that have been on the show.
Here's the thing: If you haven't seen the show before, you can get caught up by the DVDs. Spend a weekend and you're right there with us. And a lot of people do this.
archive
