Channel 10 News Miami

Salem: Boys will (still) be boys on Entourage

I’m only three episodes in, and the eighth and final season of Entourage is already rife with drama.

And by that I mean “drama” drama, as opposed to Johnny Drama, the role Kevin Dillon plays as Vincent Chase’s lovably lunkheaded brother, who I can never get enough of (and so far haven’t).

You can start to catch up with me Sunday at 10:30 p.m., when the fast-track friends return in the first of eight concluding episodes on HBO Canada.

Although, if you’re an Entourage fan, I am actually catching up with you, having abandoned the show around the end of the Medellin storyline, and never even been tempted back.

Imagine my surprise upon my return to find (possible spoilers here) Vincent in rehab, E and Sloan split, Ari and Mrs. Ari separated and, on the upside, a slimmed-down and successful Turtle, and Drama gainfully employed (albeit as a cartoon gorilla).

The accumulated collective sexism of seven seasons would seem to have finally come back to bite them, particularly arrogant Ari, who is aghast to discover that the long-suffering Mrs. A is . . . well, you’ll see. (I can tell you that she finally gets a real name.)

In the unlikely event the boys have finally learned their lesson, the final season adds the infamous has-been misogynist comic Andrew Dice Clay, playing himself as a bitter ’80s relic reduced to playing second banana to Drama’s funky monkey.

(I recently had the misfortune to sit through an interminable Clay standup set very late one night at The Improv in L.A., and trust me when I tell you he really is playing an only slightly exaggerated version of himself.)

In the season’s third episode, “One Last Shot” (airing Aug. 7), Clay’s odious presence is mercifully overshadowed by a quite astonishing return guest appearance by Canadian character actor Kim Coates.

If the name does not immediately resonate, the face definitely will: Coates has spent 25 largely unheralded years doing stellar work on both sides of the border in episodic television, from Street Legal to CSI: Miami , and in more than 40 feature films .

He finally found a regular TV role worthy of his considerable talents as the biker lieutenant “Tig” Trager on the brilliant FX drama Sons of Anarchy , a show regrettably few Canadians have seen, currently exclusive to subscribers of Super Channel.

There's something about Channel 5′s Kelley Dunn | secondchanceperu.org

What is it about Kelley Dunn?

The good-hearted earnestness?

That spark in her eyes?

An emotional transparency that reflects viewers’ own concern or outrage?

Or the infectious belly laugh that regularly convulses everyone within earshot?

Whatever "it" is, Dunn, who celebrates 25 years at top-rated Channel 5 next week, has it.

"It’s a quality that can’t be manufactured," said her boss, station manager Steve Wasserman.

Said Jim Sackett, her co-anchor for four years and the retiring dean of local broadcasters, "It’s one of those intangibles that comes across in TV. With Kelley, you look at her and you want to watch."

Dunn isn’t a newsbabe in the hyper-blond, Botox-ed Fox News mode or a tough, big-city sophisticate like major-market anchors.

The buoyant 47-year-old is girlishly cute, not glamour-girl beautiful, yet the camera can’t seem to find her bad angle.

She’s your nice neighbor, your thoughtful granddaughter, the girlfriend who talks you off the cliff and the high school cheerleading captain who talked to the school geeks.

"I won the jackpot (being paired) with her," said Michael Williams, the experienced Miami political reporter who is Sackett’s replacement and anchors the 11 p.m. newscast with Dunn.

According to Wasserman, "Kelley is the universal donor," whose appeal cuts across all demographics, particularly in the sweet spot of women 25 to 54 years old.

May ratings showed that 56 percent of all viewers watching local news are watching Dunn and Sackett at 6 p.m., said Wasserman. The figure was 52 percent for the 11 p.m. program with Dunn and Williams.

Kate Wentley, the station’s 6 p.m. news producer, recognized Dunn’s star quality 25 years ago, immediately after Dunn was hired at 22, fresh out of the University of Florida.

"I kept telling (the news direcor), ‘There’s something about Kelley,’" said Wentley.

Her TV style: Like

‘talking to a good friend’

Oh, yes, there is definitely something about Kelley.

Her relatable normality, for one thing.

She’s a middle-aged mother of two teenagers, the wife of a sheriff’s deputy, who wishes she liked to go to the gym, can’t find clothes that fit and worries about her husband’s blood pressure.

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