Coco, beware

Spoilers for "Flight of the Conchords" and "Entourage" coming up just as soon as I finish my tour of local bandshells...

When I wrote my review of "Flight of the Conchords" a month ago, I complained that they were already repeating themselves by the fourth episode, with another storyline about a relationship getting in the way of the band, not to mention a reprise of the gag where we see one of the guys out on a date followed by the reveal that the other one has tagged along. But "Yoko" grew on me on second viewing, and not just because it took me this long to realize that Coco was being played by Sutton Foster, who starred in the last Broadway musical I actually saw, the awesome "The Drowsy Chaperone."

Yes, the plot's similar to the pilot -- and the previews for next week suggest that the two storylines are going to converge -- but I think we've realized by now that "Conchords" isn't so much about the stories as the fuzzy details on the margins, the way Jemaine crows "favoritism!" right before Coco gives him his own sandwich, or how quickly Mel's mood shifts when she comes to the topless photo of Murray that he slipped in the stack. I got a kick out of both yellow legal pad gags, first involving Jemaine's notes on Bret's two-hour performance of the rough draft of "If You're Into It," then with Jemaine skimming his way through Bret's Norman Mailer-length goodbye note (that he apparently scrawled in the five minutes between storming out of Murray's office and when Jemaine followed). Both songs were catchy (I wandered around the house this morning singing, "Brown paper, white paper...") and silly (particularly Jemaine's baritone choruses and toy piano playing on "If You're Into It"). I am really just very fond of this show right now.

I wish I could say the same about "Entourage," but the show continues to bug me. Last night's episode wasn't as excruciating as the Lisa Rinna horror show from a week ago, in that it had some (minimal) Ari/Lloyd interaction, M. Night Shyamalan doing one of the better self-parodying cameos and Maury Chaykin taking his scenery-chewing Harvey Weinstein tribute to the next level. But the stories involving the four main characters are now so toothless (the real Harvey would ensure that none of them ever worked again) and predictable that I don't care about anything that happens to them. If it wasn't summer and "Entourage" didn't air in between two shows I like a lot more, I'd be inclined to just delete it from my DVR season pass list.

What did everybody else think?