Why Entourage is starting to feel a lot like the end credits of CHiPs

Towards the end of last week's episode of Entourage (which, in terms of plot, seemed only to serve as a 30-minute commercial for Marquis Jet and Kanye West's new album) I couldn't help but think that, with yet another feel-good and somewhat cheesy ending, the show has been treading dangerously into CHiPs end credits territory.

You know exactly what I mean: those last 2-3 minutes during the 80's cop show where Ponch (Erik Estrada), John (Larry Wilcox) and the rest of the merry gang of California Highway Patrolmen would start beaming their teeth, high-fiving each other, and generally ham it up on cue as the end credits started rolling.

Seriously, thinking back to that classic 1980's show's endings and its inimitable closing theme, I took a look back at what I was watching on HBO in 2007, and thought to myself: SSDD.

All they'd really need to do at the end of last week's Entourage episode was cue up the old CHiPs theme, have Turtle or Drama do some kind of pratfall to the bemusement of all, and have the camera capture the trademark freeze-frame reaction shots on Vin, Ari, etc. that Erik Estrada and crew so perfectly mastered back in the day. And there you'd have it: CHiPs for a whole new generation.

Seriously, I know Entourage is all about escapism and living vicarious lifestyles, but it's pretty obvious the show's been trending into a listless pattern of predictability of late. What, for instance, separated this episode from the four or five (dozen) ones that preceded it? Let's see:

E./Vin/Ari (take your pick) is about to lose his job/shot at bigger stardom/a huge deal because Billy Walsh/Turtle/Drama/studio villain of the week is being unreasonable/an idiot/a bigger idiot/an ass. Enter deus ex machina (i.e. Kanye West in this past episode), and everything is back to being hunky dory. High-five everbody!

Look, I'm sure they'll come up with something great for the season finale... a cliffhanger, some sort of bitter-sweet plot twist, or Drama being kidnapped and sent to a Chinese prison (hope lives). But I've been wrong before.

On the other hand, in sticking with and ending on the whole escapism theme, would I or the multitude of Entourage viewers really want something to screw up our perfect vicarious movie-star lives??

As they say, a lifestyle is a terrible thing to waste.