DJariya

What Noone wanted to start a Viva Laughlin thread? Since I doubt this deserves weekly threads, I thought I would start a series thread.

Pilot premieres tonight (10/18/07) after CSI. The 2nd episode will be Sunday at 8pm.

Synopsis for Pilot:

Dr. Henry Jones, Jr.

what time is this on? Does after CSI mean 10 eastern or 9? I'm not familiar with that program.

DJariya

I'm on the West Coast, it's 10pm PT for me.

It's regular timeslot is Sunday's at 8pm.

It's a remake of a British musical drama called "Viva Blackpool." Hugh Jackman is the Executive Producer and has a recurring part. I believe that Melanie Griffith is also on the show as well from the promos I've seen.

DJariya

Bump, It's On Right Now....i Get The East Coast Feed At Work.

MadMark

I liked Viva Blackpool on BBC America, but this is easily the worst new show of the season. Terrible acting, bad dialogue, and, aside from Jackman, everybody seemed to be embarrassed doing the "musical numbers."

Speaking of the musical numbers, the most unintentionally hilarious part of the whole show is when the backup dancers started doing the "choo choo train" move during "Sympathy for the Devil"

CreamyGoodness

marty888

The New York Times TV critic had this to say, apparently echoing TV critics across the country:

"Viva Laughlin" on CBS may well be the worst new show of the season, but is it the worst show in the history of television? It certainly comes close in a category that includes "Beverly Hills Buntz" in 1987 (Dennis Franz in a short-lived spinoff of "Hill Street Blues"), the self-explanatory "Manimal" in 1983 or last year's one-episode wonder, "Emily's Reasons Why Not."

"Viva Laughlin" is not even in the same league as "Cop Rock," a 1990 experimental series created by Steven Bochco that leavened a gritty police drama with Broadway musical moments: cops and criminals breaking into song and dance. "Viva Laughlin" also features musical outbursts and is far worse.

GradVT06

Ug, horrible. I turned it off after 20 minutes. Not much else to say about it.

mdc3000

TERRIBLE. If you're going to do a musical, you have to GO FOR IT. Just go balls out and be unapologetic about the fact that you're a musical...but everyone here was clearly uncomfortable in the musical bits and having them 'sing along' to the tracks was just brutal....like watching someone do shitty Karaoke with a non-karaoke machine... If they had went for it, I think the show wouldn't be the trainwreck that it is... I'm never watching again.

Quatermass

I agree with the poor quality and subdued nature of the musical numbers. Even if they did away with the musical gimmick of the show, the bad acting and cornball dialogue would still make it suck. I'm pretty sure Sunday's episode will be the last one aired.

DJariya

For me this falls into the category "It's so bad, it's good."

Horrible acting, awkward musical numbers. I didn't realize the musical numbers were going to be Karaoke. I couldn't even hear Jackman, Owen and Melanie Griffith sing during their numbers.

BTW, Lloyd Owen has a striking resemblence to Joel Gretsch from the 4400. But, Gretsch is a way better actor.

With under 10M viewers and the high cost of getting all those songs, I doubt this will last.

Geofferson

I too found this show to be laughably bad. Will be curious to see the ratings drop from last night's post-CSI sweet spot to the next airing.

Red Dog

You'd think tv producers would have realized that musicals have no place on television after the disaster that was Cop Rock.

creekdipper

(Heavy sigh) I think my wife & I must be the only two people in the world who liked Cop Rock & hated that it got cancelled.

We watched Viva Blackpool & were kinda lukewarm to it. Still, it was golden compared to what we saw Thursday night. At least "Blackpool" went all out with the musical numbers. "Laughlin" seemed to throw in bits & pieces in obligatory fashion, and we agree that some of the actors seemed a bit embarrassed. Even if they weren't, I know some of the audience was.

Gizmo

Couldn't watch more then 10 minutes.
Hopefully this will be gone and replaced with Jericho shortly.

DJariya

TV Guide is reporting that CBS is expected to yank this as soon as today and replace it with The Amazing Race.

They want to wait a few more weeks so they can promote Jericho when it does air.

conscience

They've already taken it off the "shows" scroll and off the schedule on the CBS site.

You can still get to the shows page and watch the pilot though.

DJariya

That's a very good sign that it's DOA. Good, it's a terrible lead-in for Cold Case and Shark.

DVD Josh

I saw only the clips from BWE, but you couldn't even hear the actors over the master tracks. Why have them sing at all if that's how it will be presented?

Mhepburn20

This is officially cancelled

Jadzia

http://www.thefutoncritic.com/news.aspx?id=7477

Septemberbaby

Geez!! After ONE episode it's gone?
Why did they even bother?

Geofferson

I knew it wouldn't' last -- but figured we'd at least see episode #3.

TheMovieman

Based on the 15-minutes I saw, it's more like:




Honestly, how big of a disaster was that for CBS?

DJariya

Actually it was pulled after 2 episodes. I'm sure the cast and crew are happy this train wreck is dead.

Amazing Race airs in 2 weeks as the replacement, I wonder if that's enough time for CBS to turn around and promote it. I'm sure lots of TAR fans have no idea when the hell it's coming back.