Comments on: Entourage Is A Spent Force

By: Sex and The City and The Loot « Repartay

Sex and The City and The Loot « Repartay — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 22:12:52 +0000

[...] that remains is the superficial garbage and you’re left with something that vaguely resembles the current state of Entourage. That is, a product that’s become so overly commercialized that it’s managed to [...]

By: Jon

Jon — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 22:31:32 +0000

I’d say one other major difference is that Seinfeld was explicitly about nothing. Entourage was not explicitly about nothing, so there wasn’t as much care towards crafting clever jokes and hilarious denouements.

You can envision a scenario where instead of creating contrived dramas about getting/not getting the movie, the writers instead just tried to be really clever and you’d have a totally different show that was a vehicle for jokes instead of a vehicle for well, vehicles. I don’t know if it would make the show _great_, but it would make it _better_.

Another point of difference is that — as far as I can tell — Entourage doesn’t have the stamp of anyone in particular. Seeing Curb, it’s impossible to deny Larry David’s heavy influence on the show, and that influence was hilarious.

By: Mike

Mike — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 20:39:45 +0000

A couple seasons ago, Entourage’s creators dedicated one to three episodes towards giving each character a shot at growth potential — and I think they discovered that they’d written such one dimensional characters that nobody could ascend out of their roles. They had always written from the fundamental premise of “this is your relationship to Vince” rather than “these are your attributes and characteristics,” and thus everybody not only lacks acting ability but is permanently defined by their relationship to the worst actor of them all.

Seinfeld is one of the few shows to have handled this conundrum extremely well. Though the characters are all extremely peculiar and set in their ways, each was written with enough vitality and uniqueness to carry entire episodes on their backs, and though they have complicated relationships to one another, they have never been defined by them. Elaine and Jerry may have dated, and Kramer may live across the hall from Jerry, but those associations aren’t growth-limiting. Then, the Seinfeld creators had the sense not to force the characters to do much carrying — each episode had multiple interesting storylines (except perhaps the legendary Chinese Restaurant one).

Just watch “Every Week on Entourage” and you’ll see how thoroughly the show failed to do that: http://www.tvmunchies.com/2009/06/entourage-parody-gives-you-same.html