What I'm Watching -- Las Vegas Season Five Premiere

Last night was the season premiere of NBC's vastly underrated Las Vegas and after having to wrap up last season's explosive season finale and deal with deal with the departures of James Caan and Nikki Cox the show did a great job of bringing everything together in its two-hour season starter.

I liked the debut of Tom Selleck as the new owner of the Montecito, but I still think that the show will suffer from Caan's absence. The way they handled his characters disappearance, vanishing from the hotel after being sought after for killing Mary's abusive father, was well done, and hopefully he'll be back in some guest spots from time to time. I also like how they aren't just shaking off Sam's escape from her kidnapper. Her suffering some after-effects from that episode makes sense, and I'm glad they just didn't blow things off and have her return to normal like nothing happened.

This seems like it will be a good, albeit different, season of Las Vegas without Caan but with Selleck. You can already tell, though, that they want to establish Selleck's character as someone who has his own way of doing things, and shaking things up among the remaining cast should be a good thing as the season continues.