HBO, No End in Sight: With Deadwood ending, The Wire going into what will likely be it's last season, The Sopranos finishing up in early 2007, I though I might finally cut the cord with HBO. That's now doubtful.

First off, I would be remiss if I didn't admit to that I have come to like Entourage. I started watching it about half way through the season, mostly because it came on immediately after Deadwood, and I kind of got attached.

It is nothing special, just a decent light-and-fluffy sitcom. There have been many comparisons between Entourage and Sex and the City and they are apt for the most part. In this case you have four men instead of four women, and you have El Lay instead of The City. The sex obsessed men are in their twenties, whereas the sex obsessed women were closing in on forty. And the men aren't nearly as crude as the women were. What that says about the gender wars I'll leave as an exercise for the reader.

The big advantage Entourage has is The Piven. It features Jeremy Piven in a role he was born for, which is worth the price of admission. I also like the Kevin Dillon character, Johnny Drama.

Anyway, Entourage would not be enough to keep me subscribed to HBO on its own, but there are two upcoming projects that might end up being fascinating.

True Blood is a horror/fantasy project based on the "Southern Vampire" series of novels by Charlaine Harris. In this series, a blood substitute is discovered that eliminates the need for vampires to drink human blood. In turn they come out of the closet, so to speak, and try to integrate into modern society. The series is to be headed by Alan Ball, creator of Six Feet Under, who has apparently moved on from the dead to the undead.

According to Ball: "It's not Gothic...It's contemporary rural America, white trashy, very funny and really scary." Sounds like fun.

The other upcoming show of interest is John from Cincinnati, this one from Deadwood creator David Milch. Here's the canned description:

"The dysfunctional Yost family of Imperial Beach--patriarch Mitch, a former surfing star who can now levitate (slightly), married to the aggressively unhappy Cissy, parents of the drug-addicted, dissolute Butchie, also a former surfing champ and the father himself to the talented but resentful skateboarder Shaun--find their lives disrupted by the arrival of the dim but wealthy John From Cincinnati, a boarding savant who's come to take lessons from Butchie, and Barry Cunningham from Azusa, whose personal connection to the Yost family has him returning to Imperial Beach to avenge a wrong done to him, by them, 23 years ago."

I love the "levitate (slightly)" thing.

Looks like I'm gonna have to stick with HBO at least until I can get a good read on these two new series.

{Me looks back at the HBO graphic on the TV and says, "I wish I could quit you."}