Ready to abandon 'Entourage'
Posted: Wednesday, July 29, 2009 6:00 AM by Paige Newman
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TV
Sometimes when a TV show starts to go bad, I just can’t look away. It’s a mystery that demands to be solved. What went wrong? How did a show that was once fresh and new grow tired and clichéd? “Entourage,” I’m talking to you.
This show notoriously went off the rails last year when Vinnie Chase’s (Adrian Grenier) career took a nose dive and the guys ended up living in Drama’s (Kevin Dillon) condo. The show’s sense of fantasy fun was lost and reality took over.
But talk about your over-corrections. This season, Vinnie isn’t just successful, he’s richer than ever. He moved back into his Beverly Hills mansion, which he now only shares with Turtle (Jerry Ferrara), he also bought Turtle an over-$200,000 Ferrari for his birthday. In this economy, there’s just something distasteful about openly flaunting that kind of wealth. And it’s especially strange for someone who just lost everything a year earlier.
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The bright spot of this season is Ari (Jeremy Piven) and Lloyd (Rex Lee).
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Why would his advisors, Eric (Kevin Connolly) or Ari (Jeremy Piven), even let him move back to that mansion? It’s as though either: 1) amnesia has hit this whole crew and they can’t remember last season’s money woes or 2) no one on the show has a lick of sense.
The creators obviously wanted to restore the show’s sense of “boys with their toys” fun, but they went way too far.
The second problem, which has been well-documented, is that the show is behind the times. First, Andrew (Gary Cole) was proud to have signed the creator of “My Name is Earl,” which has been canceled, and then Vince went on “The Tonight Show With Jay Leno” to promote his Martin Scorsese “Great Gatsby” movie. One whole episode was devoted to Turtle obsessing over the idea that Seth Rogen could have landed Katherine Heigl in the 2007 film, “Knocked Up.” (
Rogen’s response was classic).
Yes, these shows are shot in advance, but the Leno move was a known issue, the “Earl” cancellation was written on the wall, and there’s just no explanation for “Knocked Up.” This once-hip show feels dated.
The third problem is the characters themselves. This happens on sitcoms. A character becomes a caricature and stops feeling like a living, breathing person. Vince seems more vacant than ever. It’s incredibly difficult to believe that Scorsese would hire him for any movie, let alone something as complex as “Gatsby.” Drama, frankly, seems like an idiot – how in the world did this performance score an Emmy nomination? Turtle, with his happy relationship and his Vince envy, is just plain dull. And Eric, we are supposed to believe, is suddenly a ladies’ man. Really?
The bright spot of this show remains Ari, who, between torturing Lloyd (Rex Lee) and trying to get Andrew to stay faithful to his wife, makes time to cuddle in bed with his son while giving advice to Eric on how to lie in what was one of the best moments so far this season.
But these glimmers of former glory are few. Do you watch “Entourage”? Do you agree that it's gone downhill? Share your thoughts below.
