By Lisa de Moraes
Tuesday, October 23, 2007

"Viva Laughlin" is dead, causing Elvis to stop spinning in his grave.

The CBS kinda-sorta song-and-dance drama, about a small-time gambler who tries to launch a casino in Laughlin, Nev., is the first scripted series to be pulled this TV season.

The other freshman series canceled so far in the 2007-08 TV season are Fox's find-a-country-crooner docu-series "Nashville" and CW's Internet clip-job "Online Nation."

"Viva Laughlin," based on the Brit series "Viva Blackpool," was supposed to be one of the swing-for-the-fences series with which CBS would jazz up -- and young up -- its prime-time lineup, based heavily on procedural crime dramas.

CBS won the rights to the U.S. adaptation of the popular British series after what the trade papers reported was a stiff bidding war. The network ordered 13 episodes of the series, which starred Lloyd Owen, and in which cast members periodically burst into karaoke, singing along with pop classics like Elvis Presley's "Viva Las Vegas." One of the show's producers, Hugh Jackman, appeared in the pilot and was promised to return as his film schedule allowed.

Broadcast networks have been slow to pull new scripted series this five-week-old TV season, owing to the growing possibility of a writers guild strike, and delays in getting Nielsen numbers for DVR viewing up to seven days after an initial broadcast.

But in the case of "Viva Laughlin" it was a no-brainer, even though only two episodes had been broadcast -- both last week.

The network did its best to find "VL" an audience, airing excerpts during its broadcast of the Tony Awards in June, then airing a preview of the pilot last Thursday following the network's most-watched series, "CSI."

"CSI" did its part, serving up an audience of more than 21 million viewers; "Viva Laughlin" held on to only about 8.4 million of them.

Then, in its first broadcast in what was to have been its regular time slot, this past Sunday at 8, "Viva Laughlin's" crowd fell to under 7 million off a "60 Minutes" lead-in of more than 11 mil.

Even worse, it fumbled about a third of what audience it did have from its first to its second half-hour.

The network will fill the hour with a "CSI" repeat this coming Sunday, after which it will launch the next edition of its hurry-up-and-get-there reality series "Amazing Race" in the Sunday slot.