'Vega$: The First Season, Vol. 1'
(Robert Urich, Tony Curtis, et al / 3-DVD / NR / 2009 / Paramount)
Overview: This popular series, handsome, fun loving, private eye, Dan Tanna, drives around Las Vegas in his vintage Thunderbird solving private cases but is also on retainer to a wealthy casino owner to keep crime out of his hotels. He is helped by his smart and sexy assistant, a sexy and not too smart chorus girl who takes messages for him, and his enthusiastic, yet inept, legman.
DVD Verdict: As was typical with other Aaron Spelling action television shows of this era (and Urich himself starred as James Street in Spelling's even shorter-lived series SWAT), Vega$ featured lots of fistfights, gunfights, car chases, and plots that not only strained credulity, but often broke it. But faithful viewers didn't care about how realistic the show was, but how much fun and pure escapism it was.
Urich as Tanna was a former Special Forces soldier now making his career as a rough and tumble private eye, who relied on help from girl Friday Bea (Phyllis Davis), a former showgirl, his buddy Binzer (Bart Braverman), his police contact, Lt. Dave Nelson (Greg Morris) and Vegas hotel owner Phillip Roth (Tony Curtis).
A unique feature of Tanna's apartment behind Roth's hotel was the fact that he could drive his pristine T-Bird into his living room! Think Rockford Files meets what Miami Vice woulda been in the late 70s - and thats the REAL Vega$ that comes late in season 1, and throughout the rest of the series!
The first half of the first season (what they have just released) is pretty weak, goofy, stupid and cheesy at times and all in all is not that great. Whereas the second half of the first season (which they will release next year (of course), is where the series takes a drastic change for the best and becomes the classic, tough and brilliant show that made us all fans for life! This is a Full Screen Presentation (1.33:1) enhanced for 16x9 TVs and comes with the Special Features of:
Episode Promos on some of the episodes
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