On HBO's critically acclaimed "Entourage," Jeremy Piven plays Ari Gold so convincingly that real Hollywood agents feel their skin crawl, experiencing the odd sensation the show is dramatizing their biographies. The sultans of Sunset Boulevard insist "Entourage" gives the most frighteningly real representation of high-powered talent agents since Tom Cruise revealed all the nooks and crannies in Jerry McGuire's character. "Entourage" producer Doug Ellin recently explained, "We always try to write the show starting with 'What's real?' not 'What's funny?,' " but the two questions may be opposite sides of the same coin, because uninitiated audiences find it belly-laugh-out-loud hilarious. "When you're on the inside like we are, good water-cooler television is hard to find," said Jay Sures, a partner at the United Talent Agency. "Entourage" compels the real Hollywood "ten-percenters" to engage in spirited discussions of the show's characters and situations, treating the fictions as if they were real colleagues and clients, because the work-a-day professionals willingly have suspended disbelief and taken Ari Gold into the fold. For the average cable subscriber, then, "Entourage" is the entre to life as a Hollywood insider.

A Scott Silveri's situation comedy starring Matthew Perry in leading role, Go On received mostly positive feedback from critics thanks to Matthew's brilliant play as Ryan King. Ryan is the main protagonist in the TV show; he is suffering from tragic loss of his wife and attending some sort of group therapy predominately consisting of people who lost one or more of their beloved ones, but not without the exclusions. These exclusions make the series funny despite of the abovementioned tragic outline of the plot. For example, a girl named Sonia is coping with the death of her cat, Cinderella; Danny is grieving that his wife had a baby from other man and so on. Although many critics agree that Matthew Perry is the only selling point of Go On, the rest of the cast ensemble is good enough to accompany Matthew success: the group leader, Lauren Schneider, is played by Laura Benanti (Carol-Lynne from The Playboy Club and Maria Grazie fromLaw & Order: Special Victims Unit); Julie White plays Anne, a lesbian lawyer grieving the death of her girlfriend (or boyfriend girl?), you probably know Julie White as Gwen in Hello I Must Be Going and Judy Witwicky from Transformers movie series.

By some miracle, everybody in America knows all about "30 Rock," and everybody loves Tina Fey, the show's creator and star, but relatively few viewers tune-in every week. During its first season, "30 Rock" toted-up a record twenty-two Emmy nominations, but its ratings ranked 102nd of 142 primetime shows. NBC stayed with the project on the assumption that Fey's popularity and the intense critical buzz eventually would translate to ratings; and the gamble paid off as viewership steadily rose over the comedy's first six seasons. Based on Fey's experiences as head writer for "Saturday Night Live," the show satirizes life behind the scenes of a network comedy, trapping co-star Alec Baldwin in corporate intrigues as the writers and actors endure the trials and tribulations of producing a live weekly broadcast. Strong characters and brilliant badinage distinguish "30 Rock" from the standard sitcom fare, and the thirteen-member ensemble cast puts the plausibility in improbably characters.

As he championed "the new journalism" in the late sixties, Tom Wolfe suggested no one ever would write anything truly compelling"”fact or fiction"”about the suburbs; he asserted, "There is no life there." During the New Depression, however, the suburbs have gone ghetto, suddenly teeming with life and depravity; and television writers are producing all kinds of compelling stuff about what they have discovered beyond the white picket fences. Witness Showtime's smash-hit "Weeds," the life and times of a "proper" suburban widow keeping-up appearances while she deals more dope than a six-pack of Mexican cartels. As in "The Office," the basic premise for "Weeds" is an import from Great Britain, adapted from the British film Saving Grace which showed a widow and her gardener conspiring to maintain the widow's lifestyle by supplying the locals with their favorite herbal refreshment. Critics frequently compare "Weeds" with American Beauty for its exploitation of the idea "Normal is the face we wear to cover how f***ed-up we are." By contrast with "Desperate Housewives," Nancy Botwin, our entrepreneurial heroine, has far more good reason for desperation than her difficulty achieving orgasm; she has a house, a mortgage, two sons, and a reputation. Since Bonfire of the Vanities tanked and "Weeds" flourished, Tom Wolfe may have to consider the distinct possibility that there is no life in Manhattan.

When Rob star Rob Schneider was a regular on Saturday Night Live he stood out from the rest of the cast because he was actually funny! He moved on to star or co-star in some funny films such as Duece Bigalow: Male Gigolo, Grown Ups, and The Hot Chick yet didn't quite hit his stride until now with his own TV sitcom. Rob is newly married to the young and beautiful Maggie (Claudia Bassols of Blackout, Emulsion) who is Hispanic and has a large and extremely close family in southern California. Her parents Fernando (Cheech Marin from Up In Smoke, Next Movie) and Rosa (Diana-Marie Riva from Castle, Everybody Loves Raymond) are upset because their daughter eloped to Vegas with Rob. Meanwhile Rob has problems of his own simply because his new bride is now living in his home. He has issues with his personal "stuff" due to having OCD and had been a bachelor until recently. The show has its moments but mostly insults Mexicans every chance it gets.

"Bored to Death" seems so completely and consummately the work of Larry David it ought to come with some kind of designer label. Its characters show the same seen-it-all New York brusqueness that distinguished the most memorable characters on "Seinfeld," and the characters sleep-walk through their lives with the same un-self-consciousness as their cousins on "Curb Your Enthusiasm." Not surprisingly, therefore, David scored a prestigious nomination for a 2010 Writers' Guild Award. Based on a delectably quirky premise, "Bored to Death" stars Jason Schwartzman as Jonathan, a writer in search of meaning, adventure, and consolation has he struggles through a pretty routine midlife crisis. When his long-time girlfriend dumps him, walking roughshod all over his delicate ego, Jonathan becomes a Craig's List private detective. The New York Times explains, "One of the charms of "Bored to Death" is that the hero, a pothead and screw-up, secretly moonlights as a man of action" at least as much action as missing skateboards and cheating boyfriends can trigger. Ted Danson co-stars as George, a profligate publisher and socialite, who encourages Jonathan's new endeavor. Not surprisingly, Danson shows a marked tendency to steal all the scenes in which he appears. Mid-life man's marginalization probably is the well-spring of Larry David's most exquisite ironies.