The Star-Ledger (Newark, N.J.)

If you wondered if HBO’s critically acclaimed Hollywood comedy “Entourage” was at risk of developing an acute case of self-importance, the third season premiere (HBO, Sunday at 10 p.m.) will set your mind at ease.

It starts with a shot of a buxom young blonde in a tank top crossing a sunny L.A. street. Move to reveal our four horndog heroes watching this California dream float by, whereupon has-been actor Johnny “Drama” Chase (Kevin Dillon) delivers his numeric verdict: “Six.”

Drama’s buddy Turtle (Jerry Ferrara) finds that verdict laughable, so he hops up from the table to invite the woman to the premiere of “Aquaman,” a James Cameron comic book epic that the gang hopes will transform their best buddy and meal ticket, nice guy method actor Vincent Chase (Adrian Grenier), into a superstar, and raise the boys’ already carefree bachelor lifestyle to a new level.

But don’t expect a retread of the first two years. The first three installments sent out for review suggest that “Entourage” has managed to deepen itself without snuffing its main selling point, its against-the-grain conviction that being young and beautiful in Hollywood is a pleasure, not a curse.

Any worries about Vincent’s career ascent get dashed early on, when it becomes clear that “Aquaman” can’t really fail. The premiere’s main source of suspense is the question of whether Cameron’s movie will beat “Spider-Man” in opening weekend box-office numbers – a deft illustration of the fact that in Hollywood, one man’s success is another’s disappointment.

The writers have learned a lot from the last few episodes of Season Two, which saw Vincent, his best pal and manager Eric (Kevin Connolly) and their piggish super-agent Ari (Jeremy Piven) struggling with fear of failure.

The last few episodes of Season Two faked me out; between the impending collapse of “Aquaman” due to studio politics and Vince’s increasingly pathetic attempts to woo and win co-star Mandy Moore, it seemed possible that Season Three might shatter the series’ lighthearted vibe and show Vincent, Ari and the rest learning to live with the idea that not every fantasy comes true.

Ari got fired from his job with a major Hollywood agency – Piven’s spectacularly desperate performance recalled young Albert Brooks at his most unpleasant – and had to start all over with a tiny client list, highlighted by Vincent, an actor he’d previously treated as an ungrateful prodigy and charity case.

Eric, who’d once indulged Vincent’s fantasies of only doing “meaningful” films (an amusing conceit, since Vince’s arty pet project, the four-hour “Mean Streets” rip-off “Queens Boulevard,” sounded awful) eventually came around to Ari’s point of view, helped Vincent keep his “Aquaman” gig and encouraged him to take commercials, too. Eric’s change in tactics relieved Vincent’s other two hangers-on, Turtle and Drama, who couldn’t face the thought of spending the rest of their lives on the other side of the velvet rope.

Vince’s evolution has been subtler and in some ways deeper. Last season he unexpectedly revealed a naive side after Cameron cast Vince’s ex Moore (playing herself) in the lead female role in “Aquaman.” The sight of Vincent, a player par excellence, pining after Mandy – the girl that got away – revealed that he wasn’t as cagey as he seemed.

In retrospect, putting the brakes on Vincent’s success and forcing his buddies to turn bitter and self-reliant would have been an easy thing to do. The show’s chosen course isn’t just more fun, it’s more dramatically rich: Let Vincent’s career exceed his dreams, then watch him struggle to be both nice and powerful.

At some point, Vincent is going to have to figure out that his fantasy of riding out of Queens on a magic carpet and bringing all his childhood buddies with him is exactly that, a fantasy. (Johnny in particular is a whining man-child who prepares for a trip into the dreaded San Fernando Valley like T.E. Lawrence preparing to cross the desert, and coins a new mantra that I can’t stop repeating: “Bro, I gotta hydrate.”)

The third episode, in which Vincent adds a piggish ex-con to the posse, injects much-needed anxiety into his tight little group and paves the way for ugly, potentially life-changing conflicts. Like John Travolta’s character in “Saturday Night Fever,” Vincent will have to realize that growing up doesn’t just mean getting older; it means making hard choices that are bound to hurt the people you love.

That “Entourage” can broach these unpleasant subjects while staying silly, sexy and light says a lot about its intelligence and potential staying power. It’s serious fun.