Wanna be your super hero… Oh yeah, oh yeah, oh yeah!

Or something like that. I’ve been digging into the Entourage series over the past week or so. I’m about halfway through season three at this point. I gotta say it’s pretty good. Though it did take me a few episodes to warm up to the characters and the story arc. My first impression was not a good one. I actually stopped watching about fifteen minutes into the first episode saying out loud “Man, this is boring.” But I eventually returned, motored through a half dozen episodes and was hooked. The acting is enthusiastic and solid. There are generally a couple of laugh out loud moments each episode. And the premise and vicariousness of the whole series is good.

So, I was giving some thought this afternoon to my initial impression and what caused that to change. Why the initial boredom? Well, I realized that I went in with expectations of the standard laugh/gag-a-minute sitcom. And when that didn’t happen (Entourage is most definitely not a sitcom) it seemed like the pacing was all off. Anyway, I now realize what kind of show it is and I like the pacing. I like the way the characters can dialog without having to resort to gimmickry. When you watch a show like The Office it sometimes feels like everyone on the set is trying too hard to set up the big punchlines. Okay, cue over the top Michael Scott statement. And now Dwight confused repartee. And now Jim raised eyebrows. I mean don’t get me wrong. It’s great and you look forward to the shenanigans, it’s just neat to enjoy a show that doesn’t do that all the time.

The humor is kind of that natural college boy banter. Jab, jab, sarcasm, open mockery, over-the-top profanity-laced outburst… And on it goes. And that brings me to another point: a good profanity-laced tirade adds a nice dose of the authentic to a show. I mean, how much better would Lost be with profanity? With all the yelling that goes on and all the panicked situations and all the villainous characters it sure would come in handy. There are times when a character (say Sawyer for example) seems to have his dialog clipped from what would be natural without the censors. Oh well, what can you do?