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Has Entourage Forgotten How to Be Good?

Geplaatst op 22 augustus 2009 13:13 door Elpiedro

Last season was uninspired. This season isn't looking much better. Although ratings are up, Entourage needs to get its feet back on the ground.

Last year on Entourage, in what was possibly the most anticlimactic season finale ever, Vincent Chase's career seemed dead for about all of 30 seconds before it was resurrected in a stroke by Martin Scorsese. It was an unsatisfying end that viewers should have anticipated, because the entire season had been uninspired.

Before this year's season premiere, Gabe Delahaye wrote a post in which the central thesis was that Entourage is entirely predictable and devoid of dramatic conflict. He's not wrong. However, this year has seen Entourage reach unprecedented ratings. People are clearly watching. Which begs the question: Why? Is the show getting any better?

Not really. Last week's episode saw the beginnings of a conflict -- not with Vince's seemingly inexorable stardom, but with Eric's unwillingness to take a job that he is in no way qualified for. If previous episodes are any indication, this will be resolved, happily, by the end of Sunday's episode.

Judging from the preview, some actual dramatic tension might be brewing with Turtle's relationship with Jamie-Lynn and his decision to go back to school. But focusing this show on the relationship troubles of a secondary character makes it seem dangerously similar to Sex and the City with more testosterone. (But only slightly. Have you seen the size of these actors?)

The writers, despite what Seth Rogen says, are not complete morons. In an interview with The Guardian last month, series' creator Doug Ellin said, "this season, we're gonna return to a season-one feel. The inception of the show was a movie star and his friends, and what I've tried to do for the last five years is keep them and Vince down. That was the argument in the beginning with HBO: they wanted the A-list movie-star life, but I argued there's just no drama to that, no struggle. So now he is on top, what am I gonna do? I thought this year would be hard -- without him having that conflict, that seesawing up again, down again -- but we moved on to different things. We're gonna deal with the guys a little more. They're all gonna grow a little."

But the purported new direction does not account for the show's popularity. Viewers seem to fall into two groups: those who love the show unconditionally and think it's the best thing on television, and those who hate the show but can't stop watching. The latter group seems, anecdotally, to be growing. Those who watch despite their reservations (myself included), seem to be holding out hope that the show will be good again.

And it was good. The second season, centered around Vince's effort to get attached to Aquaman, was funny and entertaining, and it made the show a part of the zeitgeist. Early Entourage was something rarely seen on TV -- an inside and somewhat accurate look into both the positive and negative aspects of Hollywood life.

Since then, unfortunately, Entourage has stayed away from the negative. Vince's career is rarely anything but a resounding success, and the show has suffered for it. As Entourage veered farther and farther from reality -- there is no agent alive who would turn down a job as a studio head, as Ari did last year -- it seemed clear that the show wanted to be a complete escape from the real world. It's now a pure fantasy that holds its appeal in a "wouldn't it be awesome if life were like this?" attitude. The characters haven't grown or developed, they've just bounced from fabulous party to fabulous vacation to fabulous threesome.