{alltv} 'Manly' TV standouts return

It's testosterone time.

Both Entourage, entering its seventh season, and Hung, entering its second season, make their manly returns Sunday on HBO Canada.

But while these shows appear to be male-directed based on branding and reputation, the truth is only one of them truly fits that category.

In the grand scheme, scripted sitcoms and dramas specifically for males are reasonably rare in the TV landscape these days.

Networks figured out long ago that the road to big ratings is paved with women. Simply put, female viewers are more loyal. Once they like something, they tend to stick with it.

This isn't to say men are under-served, given that just about all sports programming is directed at men, and there's a heck of a lot of that stuff up and down the remote. But as far as dramas and comedies go, it tends to be a woman's world.

That's why Entourage stands out. It's hard to imagine anyone could categorize it as anything other than a "guy show", and the real oddity is that a "guy show" has lasted so long, given the normal short attention span of a male audience.

For the uninitiated, Entourage focuses on hot young Hollywood actor Vince (played by Adrian Grenier) and his posse of funny and foolish hangers-on.

As season No. 7 begins, a reckless movie director is pressuring Vince to perform one of his own stunts. When Vince's gang scoffs at the thought, Vince starts to wonder if he really should do it -- not only because his buddies seem to regard him as a wimp, but also because he's tired of feeling like one.

You know, real guy stuff. Egos, put-downs, car crashes, beautiful women as ornaments, the whole deal.

The irony is, the more we watch Hung -- the title of which refers specifically to male anatomy -- the more we become convinced that it is not a guy show at all, but rather a female show masked as a guy show.

Hung centres on the exploits of Ray (played by Thomas Jane), an economically challenged Detroit high school teacher who has decided to supplement his income by renting out his enormous manhood for the purposes of female pleasure.

As season No. 2 begins, Ray finds himself in the middle of a power struggle between his two would-be "pimps", the frantic Tanya (Jane Adams) and the snooty Lenore (Rebecca Creskoff). Much of the debate between Tanya and Lenore involves the wider issue of "what women want", a phrase that could have been an alternate -- albeit less provocative -- title for the show.

Increasingly, much of the heartfelt drama in Hung revolves around Ray's ex-wife Jessica (Anne Heche). There's a poignant scene in the season-two premiere, in which Ray and Jessica's daughter Darby (Sianoa Smit-McPhee) responds to an offer of sexual advice from her mother with the observation, "Not to be mean, mom, but you just seem like a totally lost person to me."

Meaty mother-daughter drama in a guy show? Well, there's always Entourage for mirthful masculine mayhem.