Another Chance

By rights, starring in two quickly canceled shows is enough to be permanently put out to pasture. Unless, of course, you’re built like Nikki Cox, in which case the roles keep coming. It’s just that most of them are for “whore”. Can’t imagine why. From this week’s Entertainment Weekly:

New Shows: Las Vegas
CONCEPT James Caan as the head of a “surveillance and security” team in a Vegas casino. But it’s the young ’uns who are center stage: Josh Duhamel as a member of Caan’s crew, MTV grad Molly Sims as Caan’s clever daughter, Vanessa Marcil as a casino manager, and Nikki Cox as, well, see below. THE SCOOP Caan is cool, but hearing from Cox is even cooler. Of Caan, she says, “He’s warm and funny and nuts — everything you’d want in a coworker.” Thatta girl, Nikki! As for her character, Mary Connell: “I was initially supposed to be, um, a whore! I’ve been promoted to special-events coordinator — I’m called an ‘escort’ now. But [I] have the proverbial heart of gold.” Great, but isn’t escort a pretty common euphemism for, um, a whore? BOTTOM LINE From its Vegas setting to its intrusive camera zooms, this has CSI: Wannabe written all over it. And why cast Caan if you’re going to push him to the side of the series in favor of the more demo-friendly hunk Duhamel?

The line beneath the bottom line: If Nikki can stop ignoring those twin elephants in the room and show us a wee more skin in this series than she did as a Vegas showgirl in Nikki, perhaps she’ll stay on the air longer.