I watched through most of the second season of Entourage last night. There’s something about it - maybe the sense of family and friendship that the four principals have - that makes it intensely watchable. I’m not sure how good or realistic or representative it is, but I guess that doesn’t really matter (although I have been made curious and am also reading my way through Wikipedia on it!). For those who don’t know what it is, its loosely based around Mark Wahlberg’s life, where one slightly talented and beautiful male actor from Queens moves to Hollywood and his three friends (try to) help him make it.
The same sort of thing applied to Studio 60 (or ‘West Wing Series 8′ as Ben calls it), which, whilst again bears very little resemblance to anything within the realms of my experience, and probably isn’t representative of reality, has a wonderful on-screen relationship dynamic between the principal characters.
It’s almost enough to make you wish your life was more dramatic. Then you look out, watch the news, see the diverted traffic (Al Quaeda is really annoying) and other craziness going on around town and you realise that there’s drama aplenty already…
Whilst of course no real drama series is ‘real’ - verisimilitude rather than accuracy being the best that you can hope for in a fictional world that represents a real one - I would say that there are plenty of elements of both entourage and Studio 60 that are exaggerated versions of what the entertainment world can be like. I say can be like, because both shows concentrate on the glamour rather than the grind, but glamour there is…
But I totally agree with you that for both shows, the real thing that makes them compelling is the relationship dynamics. And the fact that you look like a plump vince….