"Vegas" star Jason O'Mara knocked Fox Sunday for taking a "very long time" to make its "premature decision" to cancel "Terra Nova" after one season.
At a Television Critics Association panel on CBS's "Vegas," he said he was unsure whether he would be free to do another show because Fox didn't make an earlier decision about "Terra Nova." He said he took second position for "Vegas" so that he could have returned to "Terra Nova" if Netflix had opted to pick up the show, as it briefly considered doing.
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"I'm not sure how realistic that ever was," O'Mara said. (In second position, a show is given secondary priority after the star's current show.)
O'Mara said of Fox's decison on his ratings-challenged dinosaur drama: "I felt that Fox took a very long time to make what was ultimately a premature decision."
The 1960s-set "Vegas" stars Dennis Quaid as real-life sheriff Ralph Lamb, who locks horns with a gangster played by Michael Chiklis.
O'Mara wasn't the most last-minute addition to the series: The producers made a deal just last week to bring Sarah Jones of "Alcatraz," another Fox canceled Fox show, to "Vegas." She starts shooting her first episode, the show's second, on Monday.
The producers also said they opted to shoot the show in New Mexico because it offers rich tax incentives that Nevada does not. With the real Las Vegas unavailable, the show "had to find another big sky," executive producer Cathy Konrad said.