Entourage

Entourage looks as though it still has enough juice--comedy, drama and Drama-wise--to make its last season a keeper.

The series is unmatched as a portrait of the entertainment industry. [8 Aug 2011, p.39]

Piven and Dillon, of course, steal every scene. That you already know. But Caan and Coates manage to give two classic Hollywood stereotypes such real flesh and bones, that you'll wish that Season 8 was the precursor to Season 9.

What the series may come down to is the enduring notion that friendship is the simplest and best premise for comedies. Oh, and all the better if you can get people like Tony Bennett, Martin Scorsese, and Anna Faris to make appearances with those friends.

Entourage offers a reason for fans to be encouraged about the quality of its last episodes.

Ari's misfortunes and an event at the end of this season's third episode hint that Entourage may yet drift back to Season Seven's darker and potentially more cathartic territory, a conclusion for the series that tells us something new about the industry, perhaps. Another possibility is that the show's makers are preparing for a future movie.

I can't disagree with those who insist the show passed its sell-by date a few years back, but it doesn't mean I'm not still fond enough of these guys to keep watching.

Although the series undeniably embodied a certain place and time for a showbiz-savvy contingent of the HBO audience, the show's best days are behind it, and the eighth-and-final-season curtain appears to be coming down none too soon.

While the writers are still finding specific situations they haven't tapped before, like Vince's trip to rehab, the responses, the dynamic and the jokes all feel like they're slipping into reruns.

The show still feels like it's coasting off the success of those super-charged early seasons.

Some of last season's morose attention to addiction has crept into the new episodes, signaling, possibly, that our band of brothers is on the road to disillusionment or even disaster. But the occasional insertion of a bitter pill in with all the uppers, more often than not, comes off as disingenuous.

The only bright light in this grimness is Mr. Piven's Ari--ever his electric self even in the middle of heartbreak (he's separated from his wife). Long may he shine.

Saving the least for last, Entourage feels awfully washed-out and washed-up, kind of like Vince Chase's dormant career, as the show counts down to the end.