Entourage
HBO
Sunday, 10 p.m. / 9 p.m. Central

The unspeakable is happening: The couch-bound slacker — the precious 18 to 34 year-old male demographic that advertisers so desperately desire — is turning off network TV. Some are drifting up the channels into basic cable and beyond, but in most cases, the reality is worse than we could imagine: They're turning off the tube altogether. Some note the fact that, while most programming is written and developed with a younger audience in mind — because, let's face it, it's hip to be young — that same audience is beginning to recognize that it is being portrayed as a vacuous lot, a sea of six-pack abs and low-rider jeans consistently saddled with a never-ending list of petty concerns, stale jokes, and overused plot lines. Which is lame.

Enter HBO's newest creation, "Entourage," from executive producer Mark "Marky Mark" Wahlberg. It's the story of four Queens College frat boys who hit it big when one of them — Vince, "the pretty one", played by Adrian Grenier — becomes the latest up-and-comer in Hollywood and decides he needs his buddies around to help guide his career, spend his money, provide the occasional chuckle and soak up all the extra model/starlet groupies that are always in abundant supply.

This could be an interesting idea for a light situation comedy — if for no reason other than the freedom HBO has to include jokes, language and topics that network television couldn't touch with Michael Powell's ten-foot pole. Or, if played correctly with a great degree of realism and integrity, it could be an fascinating drama. But either way, this far-from-realistic scenario would need at least a shred of believability to work.

Sadly, in what is becoming an overused trick (especially at HBO), the writers and producers are often now using Hollywood itself to lend that degree of realism to a Hollywood story. "Entourage" uses this idea in force. By injecting "Hollywood talk" and recognizable faces any time they can, the hope is that these four numbskulls will look like they are walking through the pages of Entertainment Weekly, and we will be so awe-struck that Sarah Silverman or Sara Foster dropped in for a two-line part that we will forget where we are. Whether it is Mark Wahlberg walking by on a cell phone and yelling out to the fellas "let's do lunch sometime," a spot with Vince on the set of "The Jimmy Kimmel Show," a quick cameo with Luke Wilson talking about his home theater system, or even the guys hitting golf balls off the balcony and arguing whether they are hitting "Ed Begley's or Corbin Bernson's" roof, the name-dropping often becomes overwhelming. They are trying so hard to cover-up this childish concept with an element of legitimacy that it only reinforces how disingenuous the whole exercise is. Totally lame.

The source of most of this "Hollywood talk" is the character of Vince's brother, "Johnny Drama" (Kevin Dillon), who plays a failed television actor that somehow simultaneously knows everyone in town and, as a running joke, can't get work. One would assume that Kevin Dillon would be the supreme actor for this role: the brother of Matt Dillon who has acted in a series of failed television shows. Hell, why give him lines? It's his life! Yet, we are given a tired one-dimensional role, that will undoubtedly add to his list of forgettable characters. Oh, the sad, sad irony.

But despite these flaws, "Entourage" has numerous opportunities to rise above it all and pull something together to feed that hungry-for-substance 18-to-34 year-old slacker. Take, for example, the character of Eric — "the smart and responsible one", played by Kevin Connelly — who appears to be the "intellectual center" of the show. His job is to play the straight man as he tries to keep the group, and Vince's career, from self-destructing. By providing a unique perspective on the chaos that is Hollywood, the character of Eric holds tremendous comedic and dramatic potential for the show. But yet again, we are offered no sense of motivation, desire, or internal experience and this potential is squandered.

Add to this list of characters the stereotypical overachieving and obsessive Hollywood agent played by Jeremy Piven (who, by the way, was born to play the overacheiving and obsessive Hollywood agent), as well as the part of "Turtle", a somewhat dim-witted hanger-on who lends "street cred" to the show, throwing in the occasional "whack," and "homie," and "where's the hotties?" and you have a full cast that is devoid of any depth and orginality.

It's not unheard of, and always possible, that the writing will improve. There have been plenty of first-season stinkers that have turned it around by season two. Is it possible that HBO sees in "Entourage" a kernel of an idea that they can develop to eventually chase down that slacker and get him back on the couch again where he belongs? Or have they given up altogether on trying to put on original, interesting, programming and instead are jumping in with the networks in a battle for the lowest-common denominator? Either way, "Entourage," for the time being, can be summed up with a single word: Lame.

— Christopher A. Crosdale (cacrosdale2002 at yahoo dot com)