'Boardwalk Empire' (9PM ET Sunday, HBO) appears to have all the trappings of a quality cable drama.

It has a gifted cast and a conflicted central character. It has outstanding production values, a high-class pedigree and it spins out multiple narratives depicting people involved in questionable, if not nefarious, activities. It's an expensive period drama that airs on HBO, for goodness' sake.

And it should be to 'Boardwalk Empire's' credit that it does its utmost to lay out a meticulous panorama of Atlantic City in the '20s. We critics are always complaining about shows that drop plots, lose focus or go down blind alleys, but 'Boardwalk Empire' has a certain relentlessness when it comes to building the world of bootlegger and politician Nucky Thompson (Steve Buscemi).

But there's a problem here. Despite all the attention to detail, or maybe because of it, 'Boardwalk Empire' is a slog. For long periods of time, it's boring, glum, bloodless slog.

On Tues., Sept. 20, U.S. history will be made: The government is repealing "Don't ask, don't tell," its official policy that barred openly gay homosexuals from serving in the military.

Enacted in 1993, the policy mandated that military officials not ask or require members to reveal their sexual orientation. If members revealed their homosexuality, they could be discharged.

As the discriminatory ban becomes history, HBO is taking a look back at its creation and dissolution in 'The Strange History of Don't Ask, Don't Tell' (premieres Mon., Sept. 19 at midnight, re-airing Tues., Sept. 20, 8PM ET).

Filmed during the final 15 months of the law, 'The Strange History' was directed by Emmy winners Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato. The special documentary uses news footage woven together with interviews from policy experts, key players and testimonial from actively serving gay soldiers. The soldiers will have their faces obscured since speaking about their sexual orientation violates Don't ask, don't tell.

Below, preview the personal accounts from actively serving soldiers.

Last night 'Mildred Pierce' stars Kate Winslet and Guy Pearce both took home Emmys for their work on the HBO drama, and Pearce's raunchy acceptance speech caused a few raised eyebrows and dropped jaws.

Accepting his award from David Boreanaz and Anna Torv, Pearce joked that "I got to have sex with Kate Winslet many, many times."

As Winslet gave him two thumbs up from the audience he paid tribute to her, saying "I share this [award] with you. Thank you for letting me insert myself into your world of Mildred."

To gales of laughter from the audience he went on to thank his wife -- also named Kate -- "who had to listen to me talk about that every day."

Backstage, Winslet told reporters she "was thrilled," not offended, by Pearce's speech.

Louis C.K. got into a bit of trouble last year when he learned that rum, coke, airplanes and Twitter don't mix very well. Unless your goal is to upset people by trashing Sarah Palin. The comedian talked about the experience,and how he feels about it now, on 'Real Time with Bill Maher' (Fri., 10PM ET on HBO).

"I don't know what to tell you," he said. "I was drunk."

More specifically, he laid out what really happened. "I was drunk. She's weird."

C.K. then went on to explain that being on an airplane creates an altered sense of reality. The example he cited was that he cried after a viewing of 'Mrs. Doubtfire' on a plane. When the panel suggested it's the different oxygen levels at that altitude, C.K. latched on to that as an explanation.

It may only be early September, but it feels like winter is coming on the Northern Ireland set of 'Game of Thrones.'

High winds swept across the set Monday and blew apart the lunch tent just as everyone was settling down to eat.

The coastal area has been battered by strong winds caused by the tail of Hurricane Katia crossing the Atlantic and, although the weather was fine Monday morning, conditions started to deteriorate around noon.

A worker on the set told the 'Belfast Telegraph' that production had been called off for the day and everyone was moved to the catering tent to eat. Then it collapsed. "It all happened so quickly. The floor started to come up, then the side rose up, the roof took off and beams starting falling down. ... It was definitely a bit more drama than we were expecting."

For eight seasons, 'Entourage' has been a fun, breezy buddy comedy about a group of childhood friends living the good life in Hollywood. It's been a good time to watch, despite the fact that everything always works out for the guys in the end, which often led the show to hastily resolve season-long conflicts and gloss over tension between the characters.

But last night's series finale was dripping with more gloss than usual. In fact, it was all gloss. In one of the most baffling, problematic half-hours of TV I've ever seen, everything worked out for everyone -- except the audience. We were left feeling cheated over rushed catharsis, a love story that the show didn't bother to show us and characters that reconciled without ever earning it.

The whole thing revolved around an allegedly torrid love affair between Vince and Sophia, the Vanity Fair reporter who'd interviewed him several weeks before and adamantly refused his advances on the grounds that she's a serious journalist who doesn't date her subjects.

But, as we know by now, Vinny Chase's charm knows no bounds, and they fell madly in love with each other and decided to get married in Paris after hanging out for just 24 hours. All of which would have been fine, if 'Entourage' hadn't asked its audience to just take the show's word for it.

Last week, Vince helped out his buddies Turtle and Johnny Drama. That left only this week's series finale of 'Entourage' (Sun., 10:30PM ET on HBO) to help Eric and Ari. Could he throw money at their women problems and make them better? And what about his own lady situation?

!!SPOILER ALERT!!

Well, somehow, Vince convinced the reluctant Sophie to marry him. We're talking drop everything and marry him immediately, after a 24-hour date. What was the time gap between last week's episode and this week? It didn't seem to be much, so how on earth did he do that?

She fought tooth and nail against even going on a date with him and now she was ready to marry him just like that? Okay, it was a big ring, but come on?

For the season finale of 'Curb Your Enthusiasm' (Sun., 10PM ET on HBO), Larry David tapped one of New York's most famous citizens in Michael J. Fox. As he was playing a version of himself, FOX didn't shy away from his Parkinson's. In fact, it was a major part of the conflict between him and Larry.

But Parkinson's wasn't the only potentially controversial subject broached on this episode, as Larry gave a fantastic gift to a seven-year old "pre-gay" boy.

Now the gift was incredibly well-received and loved by the child, but his mother -- who also happens to be Larry's latest girlfriend -- was none too pleased, accusing Larry of trying to make her son gay.

Sure, 'True Blood' (Sun., 9PM ET on HBO) is one of the most violent and gory shows on television, but at its heart it's still a love story.

What started as the story of Sookie's unlikely love affair with a vampire expanded into a love triangle between her and two vampires. In this season finale, she finally made a decision.

!!SPOILER ALERT!!

But before that could happen, there was Marnie to deal with. I have to say that once she jumped into Lafayette, I expected her to be a lot more difficult to deal with. And then she managed to take Jesus' demon spirit ... should she have been so easy to dispatch? I mean, Holly, Tara and Sookie?

It wouldn't be a 'True Blood' finale without some death. As far as the Season 4 finale is concerned, there's a whole lot of death coming to Bon Temps as the spirits of the dead surface.

HBO says these spirits will be valuable allies against Marnie's newest incarnation. In these new preview clips below, Alcide makes an impassioned plea to Sookie, but she's not all that receptive ... yet.

Meanwhile, Sam lays Tommy to rest.

Jonathan Franzen's novel 'The Corrections' was the publishing sensation of 2001. It won multiple awards and made its author a household name.

Especially after Oprah Winfrey chose it as one of her Book Club picks and he famously turned down an invitation to appear on her show.

Rumors have swirled for years about possible movie and TV adaptations of the lengthy tome and now there are reports that producer Scott Rudin ('The Social Network,' 'There Will Be Blood') and writer-director Noah Baumbach ('The Squid and the Whale,' 'Margot at the Wedding') are close to a TV series deal with HBO.

According to Deadline, the cable network may soon place an order for a pilot episode.

It's also been reported that none other than Anthony Hopkins has expressed an interest in playing one of the central roles.

With the series run of 'Entourage' (Sun., 10:30PM ET on HBO) drawing to a close next week, it's time to drop some surprising bombshells on the cast. The show delivered in this department with two rather huge surprises in store for them and us.

First up, who would have thought that Turtle would become a self-made millionaire? Sure, a little last minute investment from Vince helped make it happen, but kudos to him for sticking to his entrepreneurial passions until they finally paid off.

Thanks to his own screw-up with a routine grounder in the softball championship game, Larry David found himself able to commiserate with Bill Buckner on 'Curb Your Enthusiasm' (Sun., 10PM ET on HBO).

Buckner famously made a similar fielding error in Game 6 of the 1986 World Series for the Boston Red Sox that cost them the game.

Buckner was game to come on and make fun of his legacy a bit, when he again missed a routine toss of a baseball Larry had gotten signed for Jeff's birthday, on behalf of Susie. Maybe he agreed to it because they wrote in a bit of redemption for him as well.

For the first time in 'True Blood' (Sun., 9PM ET on HBO), we are heading into the season finale without a real clear idea of what's going to be happening.

In previous seasons there was a slow build toward a confrontation with that season's "big bad" that went down in the season finale. Not so this year.

At least, not in the traditional sense, as that major confrontation happened this week. At the end of last week's battle, Marnie pulled Lafayette, Jesus and Sookie inside the shop, while Eric, Bill, Jessica and Pam were ready to bring the battle to them from the outside.