Yeah yeah, we know, we officially renounced Entourage when the show’s fifth season wrapped up back in October. But last night, we realized that we must’ve forgotten to delete our season pass for the show from our DVR, and ended up watching the season-six premiere on HBO. And while last night’s episode made us feel neither especially pleased nor gut-turningly guilty, we did notice a few embarrassing faux pas that made the program feel less insider-y than ever before, and it has us wondering just exactly when this season of the show is supposed to be taking place.
First off, one of the minor plot points that you may recall from last season was when Ari Gold (Jeremy Piven) risked his reputation and went out on a limb to bring the washed-up agent Andrew Klein (Gary Cole) into the fold at the Miller/Gold agency. Well, Ari’s move paid dividends last night when Klein announced that he signed Greg Garcia, the showrunner of My Name Is Earl, to a deal with the agency. Only problem? My Name Is Earl got canceled by NBC earlier this year. Whoops! Garcia is still a talented and valuable client to have on one’s roster, no doubt, but this moment really tested our already-shaky willingness to suspend our disbelief while watching the show.
But then it got worse! In the ep, Vince (Adrian Grenier) is doing his turn on the promo circuit for Martin Scorsese’s The Great Gatsby, a movie which we, as viewers, have seen no footage from (even though the show repeatedly mentions how great the trailer is). So he goes on the Tonight Show, only, instead of seeing CoCo and his mop of red hair behind the host’s desk, we are treated to an interview* segment where Vince banters with the Chin! Now, we certainly realize that there is often a lengthy time between when shows film and when they actually get to air (especially on pay cable stations), but NBC announced the date of Jay Leno’s final show as host of the Tonight Show way back in July of 2008! For a show that derives a great deal of its energy from the fact that it’s supposed to feel recent and insider-y to viewers, these two factual slipups have us thinking that the show’s creators are committed to once again running this season on autopilot.
Entourage [HBO]
*An interview, mind you, in which he tells a story about how he convinced his driving instructor to overlook his failed driver’s test by bribing him with a pair of passes to his movie premiere. If this happened in the “real†world, Harvey Levin and his band of TMZ warriors would’ve surely gotten said driving instructor fired within minutes of the show being aired.