Vega$. Episode 2. "Centerfold" A model is blackmailed.
The ending to the Vega$ pilot is pretty good. I liked it. And so, evidently, did the producers of the show because they opted to recreated it - exactly - in the first one-hour episode.
In the pilot, Dan Tanna is investigating the murder of a runaway girl. The killer (Michael Lerner) is a sleazy mob guy, who's overweight and out of shape. In the end, Dan and his friends track the guy to his house, drive a truck through the front wall and Dan chases the scum as he tries to flee the scene. However, 'chase' is a strong word. Lerner's character is dazed (I assume) from the attack, so he's doesn't run away, per se, he just kinda stumbles along and Dan Tanna (Robert Urich) walks after him. With great purpose. It's everso dramatic. And kinda silly. But, you know, it works. Eventually the guy collapses in a heap and Dan walks up to him and glowers down at him. Cue: end credits.
So, that's the end of that.
Well, not really.
As I say, the producers/writers obviously liked that ending. So they opted to do it again in the first episode.
This time out Dan is helping a world famous model (Cristina Ferrare), who has been drugged, photographed in lurid poses and is being blackmailed. (As near as I can tell, the lurid poses involve harmless shots of her bare shoulders, back and legs and she lies in bed so I'm not sure what all the fuss is about. Maybe the 70s were a much more puritanical time?).
The bad guy in this story is neither overweight or out of shape, but - depite that - the story still ends with him stumbling away from a walking Dan Tanna. Dan, you see, is enraged by what this guy has done and the guy is terrified of Dan will do to him. So, rather than run like the clappers, he stumbles and falls and gets up again and on and on. Generally making a bad effort at getting away.
It's dramatic. It's also odd. Seeing as this is exactly how the first one ended, also.
I hope the third episode doesn't end the same way...
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Vega$. Episode 2. "Centerfold"
