Entourage: It's All Too Easy

So another season of Entourage has whizzed by (every year I swear their season ends almost before it begins), but this time I might be ready for a break. The finale left me unsatisfied, and it's frustrating because they were so close to making it work.

When we last left the boys in the penultimate episode, they were flying back to New York because "we always said when we had nothing left, we'd go home." Which rings untrue and is amazingly self-centered for Vince. Everybody else actually was making it in L.A. -- Eric's management company was taking off, Drama was on a hit show, and even Turtle's prospects were looking up thanks to Jamie. Vince was the only one with nothing. I'm all for loyalty to one's friends, but that's a two-way street, and it bugged me to see the gang drop everything they'd worked so hard to build and run home to coddle Vince's ego.

Vince has always been the least interesting character on the show. Things come easy for him, he's lazy and even Ari doubts his acting chops. I thought this was really the chance for Vince to emerge. The meltdown after Gus Van Sant's rejection was the first time I had seen some fire in Vince. How great would it have been for Vince to hit bottom and have to work his way up? Auditioning again, taking supporting roles, basically busting his ass to get back to the top. He always says how passionate he is -- that was the time to show it. Showing his doubts, his struggles, maybe his jealousy over his friends' success might have actually given Vince some depth, and would have made him 1,000 times more interesting than he is now.

But along comes Marty Scorcese out of nowhere to hand-deliver what could be the biggest plum in Vince's career. And yeah, he'd be perfect as the modern Gatsby. But for once, I wanted to see him earn something. Everyone else has, and they've become better people and better characters. Vince is still getting life handed to him on a platter and hasn't grown a bit since Season 1. And that routine just gets old.
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New favorite show: The Life & Times of Tim

It's been a miserable fall, filled with lame new shows and disappointing returning shows. One bright spot, however, has been HBO's animated The Life & Times of Tim. It's reminiscent of Curb Your Enthusiasm, with Tim, the relatively normal guy, finding himself in more and more outrageous, embarrassing situations. Like what happens when your girlfriend comes home with her parents and finds you on the couch with a hooker, who you called by accident when you were trying to call an electrician and asked for "back-door action." Or when Tim fights an old man and accidentally intimidates him to death. Or when your boss orders you to take the blame when his dog poops on the office floor. You know, situations that you or I come across every day.

The animation is rough, but the dialogue is hilarious. Affable and terminally perplexed Tim is joined by his forever frustrated, incredulous (yet eternally forgiving) girlfriend Amy; Debbie, the hooker with the heart of gold who favors assless stretch pants and who Tim comes to for awful advice; co-worker Stu, whose attraction to the heartless office HR woman is just a recipe for disaster; and The Boss, who can beat even Michael Scott on the bad-boss-o-meter.
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The week in review

The TV season isn't in full swing yet, so there are still gaping holes in my viewing habits. That being said, here's a list of not so much my favorite shows from the past week, but the shows I watched. Ranked in order of awesomeness.

1. The Shield: This is the highlight of any week it's on. God, this show is good. The tension just keeps winding up, and you know it's going to explode before the season's over. Vic playing two organized crime syndicates off each other while double-crossing both of them? Vic and Shane working together to make things "right"? Vic trying to keep his career as Claudette has him in her sights? And while his own daughter almost blows everything up by trying to press charges against him? Tick tick tick tick.......this is not going to end well for anyone. Oh, and how scary were the Spook Street boys? And they're NOT one of the Top 10 gangs? Yikes.

2. Fringe: OK, the acting wasn't great, some plot points were absurd and there was a ton of awkward exposition. But the mystery was outstanding and I love conspiracy theories. The Cate Blanchett lookalike they got to star in the show is no Dana Scully, but that's probably a good thing -- there are already too many X-Files similarities. But I generally liked her character. Pacey -- err, I mean Joshua Jackson's character -- was a little young to be quite so patronizing, but once he dropped that act he was tolerable. And you've gotta love any show with Lance Reddick (Daniels from The Wire). He's just as ominous here as he was in his guest role on Lost last season. The giants locator subtitles were kinda cool (and were reminiscent of the Lost title, hmmm), but that's a trick that might get old. But overall, good production values, nice complex mystery that'll take forever to solve, and good bits of humor to break the tension. And I love how it was shot in Boston in winter. Like X-Files when it was shot in Vancouver, the location adds all kinds of moody undercurrents.

3. Entourage: The boys are back. Are they better than ever? That remains to be seen. But after a year-plus layoff, it's good to have them back. The opening scenes made me want to go to Mexico ("Wow, it's gorgeous, I never knew the coast of Baja was like that!"), until I realized they shot it in Hawaii ("Oh. Nevermind"). Vince is broke and a Hollywood pariah after his awful Medellin (reviewed in a hilarious guest appearance by Richard Roeper), which went straight to video (ouch). Hopefully he'll bounce back quickly because this show is at its best when Vince & Co. are living the high life. Broke Vince doesn't do much for me. But that bizarre bit with Drama and his new French girlfriend chirping at each other cracked me up.

4. Gossip Girl: Last week I said I wasn't hooked on it. OK, maybe I'm a little hooked. It's soapy and trashy, but not brainless. Which gives it one up on The Hills. This is quickly becoming my guilty pleasure show. The dialogue is snappy, the plot twists are delicious (Nate becoming a man-ho? Nice!), and it's self-aware enough that you know it's never going to have "a very special episode."

5. Sons of Anarchy: It seems to exist in the same universe as The Shield (One-Niners, corrupt cops everywhere), but not in the real world. It just throws me how it's set in San Joaquin County, but in a San Joaquin County with mountains, where Lodi is the major city, where heroin is bigger than meth, and where it's not oppressively hot. That bit of fantasy aside, I'm liking this show. I'm glad Charlie Hunnam (the Brit from Undeclared) finally has a good show, Katy Sagal is building an Emmy-worthy role as the resident Ophelia/Lady MacBeth, and I love how the gang is made up of a who's-who of character actors who look like serial killers (especially Kim Coates and Tommy Flanagan). I'm not completely hooked yet, and I hope it gets more compelling, because if not, it's in danger of dropping to my wait-for-DVD list once more shows start up.

6. Burn Notice: I haven't watched this week's episode yet, but it came back after a three-week, U.S. Open-induced break. This is one of my favorite shows and it has a secure spot on my weekly best list, even sight unseen.

7. The Hills. I don't know if I saw the most recent episode of last week's. Either way, it just annoyed me. I'm so over this show. The gang jetted to Vegas for Frankie's birthday. Drama ensued, yadda yadda yadda. It's sad watching this knowing that these are real people. They're all just so vapid and shallow. I can get all the same trashiness with Gossip Girl, plus not feel dirty for watching real people humiliate themselves.

What I didn't watch:

True Blood. Ehhh, it just doesn't sound up my alley. Maybe I'll check it out On Demand if I'm bored someday. Buffy gave me all the vampire storylines I'll ever need.

90210. Seriously? I didn't even make it through the pilot. It's baaaaad.

Mad Men. I know, I know, it's the best show I'm not watching. I've seen it, I've liked it, but it's just not compelling enough to get me to watch every week. It's in my DVD pile.
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Shows, exciting and new . . .

New shows I'm looking forward to:

1. Sons of Anarchy -- From the creators of The Shield comes this drama about a gang of outlaw bikers out to protect their California town from drug dealers and developers. Civic-minded gang guys? Um, OK. But the trailer looks intriguing, and Dutch from The Shield will have a recurring role as a DEA agent. And all those Shield ties give it instant cred.


2. Life on Mars -- ABC might screw this one up completely, but the original BBC series was, well, original, and compelling. In a nutshell, a present-day cop gets hit by a car and wakes up stuck in the '70s. Did he travel through time? Is he in a coma imagining it all? Is he just crazy? The big problem I think ABC might face is longevity -- you can only tease the audience so long with the reality vs. imaginary question. It lasted two seasons in the UK. That's about one full U.S. season. I'm skeptical they'll pull it off, but it'll be worth checking out. This is one show that I think will fall one of two ways -- either it'll be the best new show of the season, or it'll be a trainwreck of Bionic Woman-like proportions.


3. Fringe -- Rumor has it the pilot needs work, but the trailer for the JJ Abrams show that looks like a cross between X-Files and Altered States is dark and interesting. Maybe a little too out there to catch a big audience though, and with what's bound to be a tangled series mythology, this is a good candidate for quick cancellation if it doesn't draw viewers right off the bat.

4. Dollhouse -- Joss Whedon is back on network TV, and he's bringing along former slayer Eliza Dushku to star in it. I don't care what the show is about (though it sounds weird and creepy and dark, if disturbingly like a hybrid between Dark Angel and AI), he built up enough viewability equity from Buffy the Vampire Slayer that I'll check it out. This'll be a midseason replacement on Fox.

5. Kath & Kim -- Remake of an Australian sitcom about a dysfunctional mother and daughter, and supposedly it killed at the network upfronts last month. I might check it out, but it sounds a bit too sitcomey for my liking.

6. Worst Week of My Life -- Another remake, this time of a British sitcom. It too is getting a lot of buzz. The series follows the misadventures of a guy in the week leading up to his wedding. So what happens after that? Will it be like 24 and he'll keep having horrible weeks as the series progresses over the years? I'll check it out, but I'm already dubious about its staying power.

7. True Blood -- Alan Ball (Six Feet Under) is back on HBO, this time with a romantic drama based around Southern vampires and the women who love them. Or at least a woman who loves one of them. Anna Paquin (X-Men) plays the psychic waitress with questionable taste in men. The previews look slightly ridiculous, but it's got a cast (including Alexander Skarsgard of Generation Kill and William Sanderson of Deadwood) that could make it interesting.
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