Why Las Vegas Should Be Renewed

I was disappointed to read that the TV show "Vegas" would not be renewed next season and would, in fact, end with this season's cliffhanger. How can you end a show with a cliffhanger?

I admit that most plotlines for the television show "Vegas" were contrived, unbelievable, and repetitious. How many times can you have bad guys blowing up the Montecito? And, really, as outrageous as some of the Las Vegas Casinos are, none of them have a waterfall running down the side of the hotel. But the opening scene of Josh Duhamel, playing Danny, driving down the Strip in a convertible with the distinct sounds of Elvis singing a lesser known but fabulous selection of "A Little Less Conversation" was a brilliant stroke of past and present realism.

But the best part of the show is the cast. I was originally disappointed when James Caan and Cheryl Ladd left the show-they had a wonderful on-screen relationship. However, when Tom Selleck joined the cast this year, I saw real potential for something fabulous. And he lived up to his promise.

Even if every episode started off by validating my disbelief that Tom Selleck would be able to close the show with some sort of dignified insight, he'd deliver every single time. The closing scene would reinstate my belief in the show.

The best episodes were when the plots centered around the interpersonal relationships on the show. The worst episodes were when the writers of the show felt like they had to portray the show as living up to the "sin city" hype.

But it was just getting really interesting when Mike and Piper, much to the surprise of everyone including Mike and Piper, found themselves married after a night of drunken revelry. To annul or not to annul? It was fun watching them dance around the possibility of actually remaining married. I was looking forward to seeing how their relationship developed.

And then there was the hinting that perhaps Tom Selleck's character, Cooper, was really Piper's father. I enjoyed Piper's line that went something like "you followed me and watched me my entire life" because I had similar fantasies when I discovered my dad was not my dad and I had some other dad "out there." I imagined that he was watching me my entire life and would some day appear. Now that's great writing.

The word is the show couldn't survive the Friday night time slot and/or the writer strike. Fan are writing in, hoping to bring back the show or, at the very least, give us some closure via a real final episode or a TV movie. It's not good to leave an audience hanging when you air an episode labeled "part one," implying that there's a part two.

I think the show was full of potential. There's much we don't know about the characters. Like what about the four missing years in Cooper's past? What's the story behind Sam's tough-girl attitude? What about Danny and Delinda and their baby? And what about Delinda's parents, who went into hiding? And now her mother showed up, saying she left her father. These all were hinted at during the "part one" episode that ended with "to be continued."

I'm not sure I will ever get closure because not only do these questions go unanswered, but I will certainly miss watching the interplay of Tom Selleck, Josh Duhamel, James Lesure, Molly Sims, Vanessa Marcil, Camille Guaty, James Caan, and Cheryl Ladd.