Two Parts Silly, One Part Solemn

Reality remains the benchmark for "Entourage," the HBO series that picks over Hollywood angst to create close-to-the-bone comedy. Its third season ended in August with budding superstar actor Vincent Chase (Adrian Grenier) firing his agent, Ari Gold (Jeremy Piven), for botching a movie deal. During the season, Ari also found himself in blistering -- but funny -- negotiations to end his relationship with a longtime business partner. Viewers could laugh, but they also felt the tension.

Writer-producer Brian Burns said no mandate exists to make the show more dramatic. But if there's drama, it stems from reality.

"It's certainly a comedy, and we try to make real-life situations funny," Burns said. "At the same time, at the core of our show, the number one rule is, is it real?"

Veteran comic actor Jere Burns, one of the stars of "Help Me Help You," said he's seen reality seep into the scripts he's read. He suggests the inspiration is the work of Christopher Guest ("Best in Show," "A Mighty Wind") and Larry David ("Curb Your Enthusiasm," "Seinfeld"), whose sensibilities are heavy on improvisation and take real situations to comic extremes.

"Reality can be funny, or reality can be dramatic," he said. "But I think these days, really funny is really real. I don't think the big, goofy 'Three's Company' comedy sells anymore. I don't think that 'fake TV funny' is particularly funny."

The trend began with "Sex and the City," said Silvio Horta, executive producer of ABC's "Ugly Betty," a show that combines comedy and drama. "Sex in the City" "was positioned as a comedy, but the comedy works because the situations are very real and played straight," Horta said. "There's a tremendous resonance there for people."

Kim Fleary, executive vice president of comedy development for the new CW network, said she can't pinpoint any particular societal shift that's caused writers to make their comedies more dramatic. "I think it's very cyclical," she said.

Or it just might be that, in a time when everything from music and videos to computer software is being combined into "mash-ups," this is the right moment for comedy and drama to become one.

"Maybe it's because everything's a hybrid of everything," said Tina Fey, the former "Saturday Night Live" writer-performer who created and stars in "30 Rock."

"If 'Desperate Housewives' is a dramedy, maybe all the genres are just melding into realiramatromedycom."