'Entourage,' Giving HBO Summer Fare A First-Class Escort

It seems the much-mourned sitcom is not "bleedin' demised," but merely turning a tempting new corner. "Lucky Louie" is the precocious brainchild of comic Lewis C.K., who wrote tonight's pilot and stars in the title role: an embittered hard-luck Lou who faces bleak working-class realities made tolerable by Pamela Adlon as wife Kim and, as daughter Lucy, a strikingly adorable child star named Kelly Gould.

In an apartment that seems clearly a homage to the dingy flat once occupied by Ralph and Alice Kramden (in Jackie Gleason's masterpiece "The Honeymooners"), Louie and Kim struggle to attain their own minuscule portion of the American dream, with Louie staying home to watch Lucy while Kim holds down a respectable 9-to-5 office job. The back story is all spelled out in the opening scene, one that fans of Louis C.K. will recognize from his comedy-club act.

As children do, Lucy keeps asking "Why?" in response to every explanation that her father can offer. The answer to "Why don't you know, Papa?" is an unusually straightforward "Because I was high all the time. I smoked too much pot." Why? "I figured my life would come together on its own." But it didn't, and now his only employment outside the house is part-time work at a muffler shop. Why? Because "there's no real jobs in America anymore," he glumly tells his daughter.

In the opening episodes, Louie also tries to deal sensibly and intelligently with a new family that moved in down the hall and happens to be African American. Louie's attempts at conversation or socializing amount to a faux pas followed by an outright idiotic blunder.

"Lucky Louie" is not a runaway smash right out of the gate, but neither does it stumble or implode. The language is far earthier and more explicit than could be found in a sitcom on the broadcast networks, suggesting that one way for sitcoms to survive is simply to talk dirtier. There are also scandalous running gags, such as Louie's occasional lengthy sieges of the bathroom for purposes that have nothing to do with the digestive process.

The comedy becomes poignantly funny when it evolves that wife Kim, instead of choosing celibacy for herself (and thereby for poor Louie), decides she wants to have another baby, and proceeds to seduce her spouse via such dubiously subtle techniques as sticking a breast in his eye or bending over teasingly at the oven door. A pal of Louie's tells him -- as they discuss life on a park bench that seems designed precisely for that purpose -- that a man's first and second marriages are almost certain to fail, in various senses of the term, but that "the third wife is the best."

"Yeah," the friend says knowingly, "you'll enjoy that."

'Tourgasm'

Less inviting than "Lucky Louie" -- but also a bold departure from genre traditions -- is another in the swelling population of hybrid television shows. "Dane Cook's Tourgasm" is a combination of a reality series and a string of stand-up comedy concerts.

Cook, who created and appears in the show, might be the first comedy superstar to emerge from the murky wilds of the Internet. He used the Web to grow his fan base, and grow it did -- to such an extent that "Retaliation," Cook's comedy CD, has become the highest-charting comedy album in 25 years.

Unfortunately, the show's format -- inviting us along on a bus tour of college campuses by Cook and three other young comedians -- is off-putting from the outset, largely because comedians are among the most self-absorbed and self-fascinated creatures on the planet -- monkeys in front of mirrors who seem never to tire of making allegedly funny faces. Their onstage work is largely undistinguished, one comic opening with the unspeakably banal "How you guys feelin' tonight?" and another congratulating the audience for appreciating his humor: "You're amazing. Thank you so much," and "I had an awesome time. Thank you very much."

Okay, you're welcome, but aren't we the ones who are supposed to be having the "awesome time"?

The comics sit around the trailer making wry observations ("We're dysfunctional; that's why we do comedy") or venture out to sample the recreational activities of the towns they visit. Occasionally the chatter is interrupted by on-screen printed "rules of comedy," such as "Never trust an anti-Semitic horse" and "Learn the rules -- then do what you want."

If the prospect of accompanying comedians on a comedy bus does have a certain allure, don't get too excited. At any moment the group might hop on a private jet and fly from, say, Bozeman, Mont., to New Orleans (pre-Katrina, or so it appears). We are also given access to the questionable treat of watching comics hone raw remarks into jokes; one of them tries to find humor in such observations as: "You know what I hate about grapefruit? It ruins a fruit salad."

Hmm. Seems like a little more honing might be in order.

It would be unfair to expect 100 percent pure gold from HBO's Sunday-night lineup. It would even be unfair to expect nothing but comedy; the schedule, as of tonight, includes "Deadwood," the television show that boasts, among other features, more four-letter words per five minutes of airtime than any other series on television. "Deadwood" does have comic elements, to be sure, but could hardly be called a comedy to the degree that the other shows in the lineup are.

What they all have in common is that whether the roads they take could be called high or low (or in "Deadwood's" case, virtually impassable), they all go off in directions unusual for television. This is true of "Dane Cook's Tourgasm," the sitcom redux "Lucky Louie" or the fresh-breeze escapism of "Entourage." No other network has a night of television quite so intoxicatingly quixotic or as heavily dedicated to daring departures.

It used to be that the arrival of summer meant television turned to low-budget clunkers or scattered, tattered reruns. Cable and, particularly, HBO have changed that -- and just when you thought it was safe to turn the thing off and head into the water.

Entourage (30 minutes) airs at 10 tonight on HBO, followed by Lucky Louie (30 minutes) and Dane Cook's Tourgasm (30 minutes).