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Years: 1979, 1980
Genre: TV series, Drama
Country: United States
Language: English
Starring: Robert Urich, Phyllis Davis, Bart Braverman, Greg Morris, Will Sampson, Tony Curtis
Guest stars: Melanie Griffith, Dean Martin, Pat Hingle, Shelley Winters, Wayne Newton
Eye candy: All kinds. Strippers, showgirls, hookers, everyone is apparently hot in Vegas. Also Griffith (before she looked like the Joker), Terri Nunn, Pamela Susan Shoop, Barbi Benton, Linda Thompson, Lisa Hartman
Creator: Michael Mann
Run time: 9 hours 27 minutes
DVD distributor: Paramount Home Entertainment
DVD extras: Episodic promos on selected episodes. That’s it.
It must be so difficult to be Dan Tanna. How is he able to solve crimes when he has to navigate his way through so many women? He gets called in to investigate threats made against a bunch of supermodels, and the women throw themselves at him. How is a man to get any work done? Thankfully, in that particular episode, one of the supermodels (Playboy legend Barbi Benton) is an ex-girlfriend of his, and they rekindle their romance so the other models go away.
Of course, it’s doubly difficult to be Dan Tanna. Because you know that if you ARE Dan Tanna, and you DO rekindle a romance with someone, that person must, of course, end up murdered by the end of the episode. Dan Tanna MUST remain single and slutty for this show to work! So any real romantic love interests for him are like the orange-clad ensigns on Star Trek. Introduced for the purposes of killing them off. No wonder Tanna is so reluctant to settle down!
One of the cool things about Season Two, Volume Two, out December 7th from Paramount Home Entertainment, is the impressive guest list. Vegas stalwarts like Dean Martin and Wayne Newton, singing stars like Lisa Hartman (who later married Clint Black) and Terri Nunn (remember the band Berlin?) Then there are the reliable, recognizable faces like Pat Hingle and Tony Curtis and a young Melanie Griffith.
It’s pretty clear how every episode is going to go, but it’s fun to see the familar faces of all these guest stars, and the show is just fun, in general. Hot babes and cars and bright lights and straightforward private investigations that really should be carried out by the police. (Greg Morris, as the token policeman, seems to do just as much work on each case as does Tanna himself.) Whatever. It’s an escape, and it’s a decent one.