COULD-A CASE: VEGAS MISSING LINKS

It's a shame that 'Las Vegas' is on NBC and 'CSI' is on CBS. I'd love to see Anthony Zuiker and the 'CSI' writers acknowledge the bizarre death of Montecito Casino owner Monica Mancuso in the last two episodes of 'Las Vegas'. (She was blown off the roof by a gust of wind which treated her dress like a billowing sail.)

They could make some sort of veiled reference to it as a case that was solved off-camera. After all, despite the intervention of Big Ed throwing around his FBI contacts with the cop who was hassling Danny as a suspect , only Gil Grissom and his CSI team could officially clear him of suspicion. One of the basic tenets for the 'CSI' shows is "Only the evidence tells the Truth", and that includes the security cameras on the Montecito's roof.

There was another Vegas death that would be in the CSI archives from forty years before - one Franklin Gibbs of Elgin, Kansas, on 'The Twilight Zone'. Caught up in "The Fever" of gambling, Gibbs was haunted by one particular slot machine which followed him back to his hotel room out of revenge for being tipped over.

Terrified, Gibbs was forced off the balcony of his hotel room and was probably written off as a suicide by the investigators who preceded Grissom's team.

Who was going to suspect a slot machine to be a murderer? It's not like one-arm bandits leave fingerprints......

I'd also like to see somebody mention the ghoulish bet made by "The Man From The South" involving the dependability of a cigarette lighter and the possible loss of fingers, as seen on 'Alfred Hitchcock Presents'.

And maybe I've missed it over the years, - and I don't care if it happens on 'CSI' or on 'Las Vegas', although both of them should do this, - but there should be some mention of Dan Tanna. Played by the late, great TV stalwart Robert Urich, Tanna was a private eye nonpareil in 'Vega$' back in the '70s.

It wouldn't kill the current shows to tip their hat in some small way for the TV character who first made their locale popular in TV Land.

BCnU!
Tele-Toby

"No such thing as a sure bet...
Unless the deal is fixed."
Perry Mason
'PERRY MASON'