“Vegas”: A Hit Show Starring Dennis Quaid
I checked out the new CBS drama “Vegas,” starring Dennis Quaid, last night. I can’t say that I watched the entire episode — I’m allergic to CBS dramas: CSI, NCIS, ABCD, etc. — but I was pleasantly surprised by what I witnessed. “Vegas” stars Quaid as a character based on the real-life Sheriff Ralph Lamb, a fourth-generation cattle rancher in Las Vegas who eventually gets pulled in to becoming the “law†just as Vegas is going from a sleepy cow town in 1960 to the over-the-top glitz bomb it is today. CBS has managed to create a period piece without relying solely on that factor as the cool conceit. But it’s a nice and essential element to the stories that will unfold — how the desert’s former lifestyle was about to be overrun by the mob, celebrities, opportunists of all stripes and plenty of people who felt outside the law were there.
