Looks like there's one more fall premiere to deal with tonight on CBS, and boy howdy, is it a doozy. It's called "Viva Laughlin," and it premieres at 10 p.m. before moving to its regular timeslot this Sunday at 8 p.m.

If the idea of a drama that occasionally has its characters bursting into song immediately has you flashing back to painful memories of "Cop Rock," we wouldn't blame you. But remember that musical TV dramas have a proud history in Britain, most impressively in the Dennis Potter miniseries "The Singing Detective" and "Pennies From Heaven." Another example is the show "Laughlin" is based on, "Blackpool," (which aired on BBC America as "Viva Blackpool"). This American version focuses on Ripley Holden (played by Lloyd Owen, another Brit sporting a bad American accent), a businessman opening a casino in Laughlin, Nevada. His former business partner turns up dead, and the plot starts rolling. And it's a yawn. You'd think having the characters burst into song would liven things up, but you'd be wrong. Where the musical numbers in "Blackpool" had a kind of balls-to-wall, give-it-your-all, no matter how dumb it looks feeling, the scenes in "Laughlin," when they do happen, are dull, dull, dull. Most of the time characters just charge through a room singing over a musical track. Hugh Jackman shows up for one number singing "Sympathy for the Devil" that comes kind of close to the "Blackpool" feel, mainly because it actually involves back-up dancers and some choreography, but for the most part, "Viva Laughlin" is an embarrassing mess. And we don't even want to get into the spectre of Melanie Griffith in lingerie singing along to Blondie's "One Way or Another."