Sunday evening on HBO delivered new episodes of ‘Entourage’, ‘Lucky Louie’ and ‘Dane Cook’s Tourgasm’. During the regular TV season I prefer ABC’s line-up on Sunday nights. Since everything’s in reruns I’ve been spending my Sunday evenings with HBO. Starting at 10 pm with ‘Entourage’, then ‘Lucky Louie’ and finally ‘Dane Cook’s Tourgasm’. I started watching ‘Entourage’ intentionally but to be honest, I never would’ve bothered with ‘Lucky Louie’ or Cook’s reality show if they didn’t come on after ‘Entourage’, so kudos to HBO for good scheduling.
This season of ‘Entourage’ really seems to be building up the momentum once again. After the success of Aquaman Vince is faced with the decision of whether to do the sequel to Aquaman or the film he really wants to do, Medellin. He finds out that he can’t do both because they are both set to start shooting on the same day. There is no changing the date for Aquaman so he works with the director to change the date of Medellin. After a bit of sitting around brainstorming (with the help of some herbal refreshments) they come up with the idea to start filming part of the movie before Vince does Aquaman 2 and then film the rest of the movie afterwards. This plan seems perfect until the producer of Aquaman tells Vince he doesn’t want him doing Medellin because of how playing Pablo Escobar could affect how people perceive Vince as Aquaman. Vince isn’t happy about this at all.
That was the meat of Sunday night’s episode. Other notable moments were that Ari manages to get the bratty child actor away from his daughter by convincing Penny Marshall to sign him for the Encyclopedia Brown trilogy being filmed in Russia. Vince helps Turtle get Saigon’s song on the radio. Ari agrees to help Turtle get the group signed. He also agrees to represent Drama, who’s been agentless since Ari left the agency. I think Ari was just really eager to end the lunch at Spago before anyone saw him sitting with Drama and Turtle so he pretty much agreed to anything. He did promise to change Turtle’s life. Should be interesting to see how this pans out.
After ‘Entourage’, ‘Lucky Louie’ comes on. I’ll admit, I hated this show when it first came out. It’s sloppy and often times, unnecessarily obscene. For some odd reason though, the show is really starting to grow on me. The jokes are crass, there’s a lot of bad language and more full-frontal male nudity than any sitcom should have but with each episode I’m finding myself laughing out loud more and more. Sunday night’s episode was about Louie’s wife trying to get him to eat healthier. Goofy humor ensued as he attempts to exercise in a playground and winds up binging on a chocolate cake in the bathroom. To be honest though, the story of each episode doesn’t matter all that much. It’s mainly the back and forth banter and random one-liners that make the show funny. In terms of sitcoms, its by far nowhere near the quality of network TV but the comedy is there and in the end, that’s what matters.
‘Dane Cook’s Tourgasm’ followed ‘Lucky Louie’ as usual and once again I find myself fascinated by this behind-the-scenes look at life on the road for a group of comedians. It should first be said that Mr. Cook is not only hilarious but also very nice to look at. He seems like a pretty down to earth guy in a jeans and t-shirt sort of way. Dane and the three other comedians that he’s touring with have to deal with constantly jumping from city to city, living in close quarters with each other and working on perfecting their acts.
Like any reality show there’s a good combination of laughs and drama among the group. They don’t always get along and often enjoy playing jokes on one another. In Sunday night’s episode Dane talks about his websites and Bobby deals with his knee injury, which is interfering with his act. Overall the tour seems to be going well though and I have a feeling this series is going to launch Cook into mainstream comedy. Perhaps when it’s all over, he’ll join the many rising comedians who’ve gotten their own sitcoms.
Thus concludes this abridged recap of HBO on Sunday night. I have to say, it’s nice to have a place to turn to during the rerun season for fresh television. Thank you, HBO.
