HBO's Sharp 'Comeback,' 'Entourage': The Returns Are Promising

Now and then, someone confronts her with the smile-demolishing reality of her situation -- real reality, not "reality show" reality. It happens during the taping of the "Room and Bored" pilot, when Cherish begs to do another take of the one line she has in an act-ending scene and, when told no, enlists the audience to chant "Another take" along with her. James Burrows, the best-known sitcom director in television, playing himself, takes Cherish aside and, with a pointed reference to her long-extinct previous hit, tells her, "You're not 'It' anymore."

Even then Cherish tries to maintain a smile of sweet defiance, a composure that insists she hasn't really been wounded by words that must have stung like bees. And fortunately, life isn't just one kick in the pants after another.

She arrives home after the taping to find that leaking plumbing has destroyed her award wall, the place where she displayed trophies and memorabilia. The collection includes "My Leno," a photo of her on "The Tonight Show With Jay Leno," which the cascading water has turned into a mess.

You think she's understandably going to sit down and cry, but then the phone rings with the message that "Room and Bored," however stupid a waste of everyone's time, has been picked up by the network (unnamed) for its fall schedule.

Other shows ballyhooed at the network's "upfront" sales pitch in New York include "Take That," in which newlyweds in padded suits and helmets clobber each other with their choice of tools, and "The Search for America's Next Great Porn Star," obviously a licentious variation on "American Idol." To judge from such titles and formats as these, the unnamed network must be NBC, where "Friends" held forth for all those profitable if insanely repetitious seasons.

Is Kudrow biting a hand that fed her? Oh, maybe chomping at it a little. In truth, the upfront ceremony and many other satirical touches are lampooning the network TV business, not any one network or network-owning multimedia conglomerate.

Through it all, Kudrow beams and blossoms, not a Little Mary Sunshine -- since she's capable of delivering her own slyly snide retorts -- but a woman determined not to reveal the hurt inside. Cleverly concocted by Kudrow and Michael Patrick King, creator of "Sex and the City," who has experienced a comeback or two of his own, "The Comeback" takes advantage of pay-cable's greater freedoms without being obnoxious about it. There might be a glimpse of nudity here, an unbroadcastable expletive there. But glory be, the show has weight, dramatic and comedic, and Kudrow makes sure that every zinger is properly zung and, just as important, that every bittersweet detail rings true.

"The Comeback" is a rare thing -- a comedy that can break your heart.

"Entourage" is, of course, more flippant and superficial. For one thing, all the main characters are men, and men either willing to step on other folks' faces to get ahead or else just bobbing frantically to keep their own swelled heads above water. Even so, the guys -- four friends from back East who have formed a kind of unarmed phalanx to protect their most prized member -- are vulnerably likable, no cockier than they need to be to survive in a business where ruthless egomania is the norm.

Nobody bats an eye over backs stabbed or hopes dashed.

Adrian Grenier as Vince is the group's meal ticket, a wised-up kid who knows he's a looker but also knows that will get him only so far. Kevin Connolly, one of the most amiable surprises in the cast, plays his close friend Eric, who becomes his manager. Kevin Dillon is typecast as Johnny, brother of a big star (Matt Dillon in real life, Vince in the series), and has an admirably hilarious time making a transparent fool of himself and walking into one humiliation after another. And Jerry Ferrara plays Turtle, a goofball who is strictly in it for the women, the 70-inch Sony TVs and the women.

In addition, dominating virtually every scene in which he appears, Jeremy Piven does a magnificently ferocious job as Ari, Vince's agent and one of the slickest operators in a town that is elbow-to-elbow with them. If talking fast were an Olympic event, Ari would have gold medals coming out of his -- er, nose. It's a joy to watch a performance in which actor and role seem joined seamlessly -- pure perfection in casting and execution. Ari's put-downs stay put, but he's also the subject of scorn even from his friends -- as when Vince complains to him, "You carry about as much weight as Lara Flynn Boyle."

The series is dripping with babes; beautiful women lurk everywhere, scrubbed and shiny and objectified to the point where they sometimes seem like living furniture, or glamorous baubles picked up in a Rodeo Drive boutique. And yet there aren't any really significant female parts, with such incidental exceptions as that collector's item Debi Mazar in the role of a trendy real estate agent.

It's too bad the plot doesn't zip along as quickly as "The Comeback's" does. In the season opener tonight, Vince is being begged by his agent to consider the title role in a new superhero epic called "Aquaman," and on the strength of a big payday -- even though he abhors the thought of playing the part -- Vince buys himself and his friends one of Marlon Brando's old houses, this one a mere $4 million. Unfortunately, when the fifth episode of the season rolls around, you'll discover that Vince is still arguing about taking the part of Aquaman and Ari is still staging fits and screaming into his cell phone about it.

Along the way, though, there are plenty of enjoyable incriminating details. Gary Busey, still crazy after all these years, shows up in the first episode, babbling pseudo-mystical mush. In the third episode, the boys prepare excitedly for a visit to "The Mansion," which in Los Angeles could only be the Playboy Mansion, and Hugh Hefner makes a dryly self-mocking guest appearance. Ralph Macchio, looking much, much different than he did in his "Karate Kid" days, comes out of obscurity to guest-star in that episode, and later on Bob Saget has a ball trashing his innocuous image.

It's a fast-moving show -- the wheels spin entertainingly even if the vehicle doesn't get very far -- and loaded with insights and sarcasm about the showbiz Sodom in which it is set. It's amusing and playful and rewardingly waspish, but the show that makes the bigger impression, and helps to banish the aridity from which HBO has stodgily suffered in recent months, is Kudrow's. People who were wondering whether she'd make a comeback will discover that she's done more than that; she's made "The Comeback," a comedy that aims very high and sometimes strikes very deep.