TV Notes

It may just be me but Entourage isn't clicking for me this year. The boys aren't all that interesting--well E is, I guess--and the attempt to "humanize" Ari seems ham-fisted and awkward. Last night was the nadir of that particular story track. Ari's jealousy over his former-actress wife kissing a Latin pretty boy in a soap opera scene was wildly overwritten and overplayed. For the first time I sense that the show is probably only a season or two from folding. Its starting to feed on its own cliches.

I finally caught an episode of The Flight of The Conchords. A number of amusing scenes, yes, but I sure don't understand what the buzz is about. Entourage felt like something brand new for a couple of seasons. Flight feels like sketch comedy rather than full-fledged character comedy. And not very original sketch comedy at that. Maybe it's the fact that all three of the principals are fools and incompetents. The only trio that ever got away with that was The Three Stooges.

I know nothing about fine art but I recommend the Ovation series about famous painters. The Goya segment is running this month and its truth is more powerful than fiction could make it, how a courtesan perfectly happy to be rich and famous flattering royalty with his paintings turned into an angry, bitter and horrorific chronicler of the lower depths after losing his hearing (among other senses and abilities). The latter-day Goya paintings integrate witchcraft (then a "fact" of everyday Spanish life) with reportage about life in the gutters and insane asylums, producing a look that dozens if not hundreds of commercial artists have imitated in trying to create a supernatural atmosphere. These are grim brutal paintingsyou'll never forget.