Viva Laughlin

It is amazing how terrible this show is. The original series, the BBC's Viva la Blackpool is well acted, original, and surreal. It is a joy to watch. I would highly recommend it.

There have been a lot of British shows that have been butchered by their American adaptations, but none have missed the mark as badly as Viva Laughlin. The original works because the music punctuates the feelings of an otherwise very serious and dark story. The result is surreal and edgy.

Laughlin is a painful over the top Broadwayisation of the original. Laughlin's horrible acting and reworked script makes it impossible for you to connect to any of the characters.

Laughlin fails miserably at capturing any of the emotion or beauty of the BBC version.

The first time the hero starts dancing to "Via Los Vegas" and hops on the casino table I let it pass. The third time, when Bunny starts singing "One Way or Another" by Blondie, and go into a dancing routine, I clicked the show off an erase it from my DVR.

Why did they do this? Were they trying to make it different then "Las Vegas"? They succeeded but it's awful. I suppose if you like musical it will work for you but I don't find the musical form that entertaining.

It looked like it could of been a good story but they messed it up for me my making it into a musical. What next, turn CSI into a musical? Have singing, rotten corpse?

Viva Laughlin looks like it was done in Bollywood.

Viva Laughlin is fun to watch, but only in the same way that the movie "Plan 9 From Outer Space" is fun to watch: It's such a train wreck, you can have fun seeing how bad it gets: The premise is uninteresting. The characters are uninteresting. Most of the musical numbers are lamely choreographed without flair or style. The dialogue is hilariously bad, replete with clichés and bizarre mixed metaphors.

The one bright note (pun intended) in Viva Laughlin is Hugh Jackman's delightfully cheesy interpretation of a gangster-businessman and his rendition of "Sympathy for the Devil." Unfortunately, that character is not a regular character so he would not appear that often.

The other major actors are just awful--and so is the show.

It would be almost decent if the actors would stop bursting into cheesy (and I'm talking extra cheese with a side of cheddar) musical/dance numbers every five minutes. I'm not kidding.

I can understand how Melanie Griffith (playing a character named "Bunny" - yeah, a real stretch!) and Wings Hauser (the kiss of death to any show) would be desperate enough to sign up for this train wreck, but Hugh Jackman? At least he has talent.

I'm all for trying out new concepts for TV shows, especially because the industry is so resistant to innovation. But with innovation comes a lot of flops. And Viva Laughlin is the flip-floppiest!

Sorry, guys! Try again!

Lambast the singing all you want, but that's exactly what makes this show something different to watch. I applaud the execs who had the guts to try something off the mainstream. Everyone knows Las Vegas is hot, and NBC already has that cornered.. so why try to compete with the same format? All of you who complain about the singing are missing the point, totally. I expect that every person (men usually) who say they can't stomach musicals have deep down inside, in that dark closet, a soft spot for song in a movie. Or a TV show in this case.

Yeah, it didn't work in Cop Rock, because WE ALL know what cops are supposed to be like. And singing cops is just plain weird.

But the characters in Viva are meant to be cartoonish- almost larger than life... I mean, how many Nevada casino owners do you know? And who says what they're supposed to be like? Most casino owner stereotypes are built of fiction. So why is it so far fetched that they break out into a number once in a while? It's a refreshing change of pace in a TV show, and for that reason alone, I say it deserves a FAIR shake!