KEY POINTS:
The boys' own Friday night on TV2 starts with Entourage, a new HBO show which follows overnight movie star Vince and his posse of mates from back home in working-class Queens riding on the coat-tails of his fame and fortune.
Vince has the face and charm but not much drive or brains - for these he relies on his mate Eric, who manages his career right down to reading scripts. The show has been described as a blokes' version of Sex and the City, but while thirtysomething women openly on the prowl were new telly territory, there's nothing surprising about a bunch of lads working their way through all available talent under the motto "no commitments".
The show boasts stars playing themselves, such as Jessica Alba in last week's episode, but easily the best thing so far is Vince's motormouth agent Ari (Jeremy Piven). "Try this sake ... me and the wife discovered it while we were visiting Sophia on Lost," is one of his more modest name-drops over dinner.
Entourage is supposedly part-satire on the excesses of Hollywood and it offers the odd bit of witty and outrageous banter but, in the end, it's less a spoof than a wallow in the fact that being rich and famous rocks.
Whoever's idea it was to send hard-rockin' Tommy Lee off for a dose of tertiary ed should get an A for guile and cheap entertainment instinct and a well-earned E for effort.
Sticking the anarchic Motley Crue drummer in a manicured institution in the conservative American Midwest is a virtually guaranteed high-explosive culture clash, bound to make Tommy Lee Goes to College, to borrow an adjective from the protagonist, "killer" television.
Perhaps that E grade is a little harsh: it must be noted the makers have gone to some trouble to rig things up for maximum impact between the metaller and the Ivory Tower.
Those who can read - Lee certainly doesn't give the impression he's ever troubled the books - might have noticed that the show's end credits confess that Lee attends classes but is not an enrolled student. And that the dorm room he has refurbished as rock god lair and where he obviously intends to wreak havoc is off-campus.
But what the hell, we don't have to have a degree in Film and Media Studies to know that "reality" always means highly contrived. The genre has given us aged rockers and pop stars ad nauseam in their domestic habitats but setting Lee to shamelessly exhibit his burned-out brain cells in the cloistered halls of academe is a diverting new twist.
Yet somehow the interest lies less with Lee - we all know the former Mr Pamela Anderson is a hell-raiser - and more with the supporting cast. The Chancellor of UNL comes highly commended: he surely must have practised for hours to keep his face so full of po for his interview with his stellar new student.
Even the most uncritical viewer might find nerdy and dowdy academics are suspiciously thick on the ground at the strait-laced university. The makers have dug out priceless exemplars of the species, most notably Lee's English teacher, wielder of the longest, greyest plait in God's creation.
But the highest grade for show-stealing must go to the Chancellor's PA, a woman of mature years and deceptively buttoned-up appearance, who with an almost audible smacking of the lips, pronounced Tommy Lee "very handsome". Now there's something you don't see everyday: a fox in middle-aged sheep's clothing.
