Rewatching Entourage
They don't make them list this anymore
After the holiday break, I started rewatching Entourage. The 30-minute episodes and relatively short seasons (save Season 3) make it an easy show to binge. Entourage is a strange work of art. There was nothing like it at the time, and there hasn’t been anything like it since. Some might say Sex and the City offers a parallel, but that was a 60-minute show that, while it had a lead character, had far more fleshed-out sub-characters.
My all-time favorite show and character are the same, House, M.D. Dr. Gregory House was one of a kind. Despite the somewhat formulaic model and structure adopted by each episode, it never got tired.
In re-watching, I have a few observations.
While House’s formulaic structure never got tired, Entourage’s formula became tedious quickly. Every episode plays out the same way. Vince wants to do something. The thing he wants to do is often irrational. Ari tries to explain why the thing he wants to do can’t happen or is a bad idea. Vince is unmoved and instead chooses the poor decision. Things don’t work out well. E and Vince will yell at Ari and threaten to fire him. Then something works out to cool the temperature.
Vince is a horrible person, client, and friend. He’s an insufferable, self-inflicting, crybaby. He makes poor decisions after poor decisions and then gets mad at everyone else for their reactions.
The number of stars they got to show up for cameos and small parts is incredible. James Cameron? They convinced Cameron to show up, act, and front a pretend movie called Aquaman? Mandy Moore? Lamar Odom? And so on and on.
This show could never be made or exist in 2025. The language, the remarks, the lack of well-developed female characters, how Lloyd is treated, and so on - would all be problematic in 2025.
We need more 30-minute dramedies. It feels like this genre of TV show is all but dead. We have 30-minute comedies and we have hour-long dramas. But, there really isn’t a middle ground anymore.
They don’t make them like Entourage anymore, for better and for worse.