Deseret News (Salt Lake City): CBS's 'dr. vegas' is on the sick list

Rob Lowe has apparently had it with earnestness, going instead for, well, something considerably less serious in his new series "dr. vegas."

He plays Dr. Billy Grant, who operates out of his penthouse suite as the house doctor at a Las Vegas casino. And, as you'll see when the show premieres Friday at 9 p.m. on CBS/Ch. 2, he's cracking wise all the way.

"I was interested in playing someone with a little more devil-may- care, sort of fun, bad-boy quality," said Lowe, who, after four years on "The West Wing," moved on to his own short-lived series a year ago, "The Lyon's Den" -- where he played a very serious lawyer.

And, he said, he's really just returning to an earlier phase of his career.

"I played some roles like that earlier in my career and had a really good time with them on (the movies) 'About Last Night' and 'St. Elmo's Fire.' And both on 'West Wing' and 'Lyon's Den,' those guys were unbelievably earnest. And I was thinking it might be fun to play a little bit of a wise-(guy)."

Fun for him, perhaps, but not necessarily for the audience. As it turns out, "dr. vegas" is sort of a land-locked "Love Boat" without much charm. Whether it's some sort of life-threatening disease, a failed attempt at suicide or some minor ailment, Billy jokes his way through it.

His main foil is his buddy/boss, the casino's general manager, Tommy Danko (Joe Pantoliano, who's nearly a caricature of himself). Then there's the gorgeous blackjack dealer-by-night, college-student- by-day, (Sarah Lancaster of "Everwood") and the hotel's "enforcer" (Tom Sizemore, who's not exactly a regular on the show because he's headed for jail after being convicted of beating up his former fiancee).

Everything about "dr. vegas" seems contrived, which is, apparently, by design. To say that Lowe is intent on doing a "provocative" show would be an understatement. "One of the lessons I learned in 'Lyon's Den' is . . . the more provocative the storytelling you can do, the better. To grab an audience, to be provocative is really incumbent upon a writing staff in today's television climate.

"And so one of the reasons I decided to do this show was, 'Hmmm, do you think there's anything provocative going on in Las Vegas? Let me think.'

"And the answer is -- everybody's provocative in Vegas. You go to Vegas to be provocative. So to me, it wasn't about Las Vegas, per se. It was about a place in the country where you can do provocative storytelling and have it be completely organic."

Provocatively speaking, that is.

Unfortunately, "provocative" is not synonymous with "entertaining."

LOWER CASE: Yes, the title of this show really is "dr. vegas," all in lower-case letters. For no particular reason.

"It's an aesthetic choice," said executive producer Jack Orman.

Maybe it was just to tick off TV critics, who have to use what looks like a typographical error and hope some editor doesn't change it so it looks right but is actually wrong.

E-mail: pierce@desnews.com