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Last night's season premiere of Entourage brought the giddy hope that the conspicuously porking-free pay-cable series might finally cast aside its troubling modesty and let its boots-knocking-freak-flag fly, treating us to the kinds of hott, nonpenetrative action that is the right of all HBO subscribers. Alas, even in an episode featuring an ocean liner stocked with enough groupies and nymphomaniac Victoria's Secret models to kill even the most priapic, Hefner-level satyr, there was nary an ugly being bumped, on-screen or off, forcing us to once again repeat the LAT's recent question, "Are you really going to make us switch over to Cinemax to see some fucking, guys?" In an interview with TV Week.com, creator Doug Ellin explains his "tell, don't show" philosophy concerning his characters' ostensibly busy fuck-lives:

"For my taste, I don't want to watch the guys get naked every week," Mr. Ellin said about the lack of sex scenes on the show. "I would rather hear the guys talk about their sexual experience last night than watch it; I think it's funnier and it's more real to life." [...]

"The fact of the matter is I could show sex all day and all night, and the show would be boring and old," Mr. Ellin said. "I don't want to burn five minutes with a gratuitous sex scene. I'd rather have comedy and find something out about the characters."

As much as we'd like to finally see Johnny Drama strap on his Viking helmet (which would be an appropriate character touch, not at all gratuitous) and get some fame-proximity ass from one of his little brother's desperate castoffs, we suppose we'll have to entertain the possibility that the show is dramatically richer for its restraint. Had last night's poignant scene in which Vince reconciles with estranged soulmate Ari been preceded by one where the star was graphically serviced by a waitress in the restaurant's bathroom, their long-awaited reunion may not have crackled with the sexual tension that colors their every post-break-up interaction.