Late nights such as last night are a strange beast. You don't know why you're awake, but then you remind yourself there's a lot to do, but then you remember you've pretty much done everything already and you realize you're just making excuses for yourself to be awake. There's usually something that drives this behavior. It's usually something you'd otherwise not consider important enough to stay awake for.

Last night's impetus was episodes of Entourage on HBO OnDemand. Before last night, the show was nothing more than a familiar name with some familiar characters/elements. After last night, it is still those things, but also something else. Overrated. There, it's out there. Keep reading if you can, boiled blood or not.

It's not a bad show necessarily, but just doesn't seem that great. Sure, it's on HBO and there's a pedigree there, but the only true indication of the show being on HBO and not NBC is the degree of profanity and the occasional flash of nudity. Not exactly what would be considered "edgy" in most books. There isn't anything challenging about the show. Maybe that's what it's good for, but HGTV meets the same basic criteria for entertainment.

The show seems to play out like a West Coast/LA version of Seinfeld. It's just a group of people that basically do nothing, but a show revolves around this nothingness. The only thing missing from the Seinfeld comparison is intelligent humor and creativity that slaps the viewer in the face. Sure, parts of it are funny, usually it involves a quick barb by Jeremy Piven, but by that standard, people should be waiting in lines to buy PCU on DVD. The celebrity cameos are also an enjoyable element, but when it's Marky Mark playing golf with Jeremy Piven, something is left to be desired, regardless of the fact that Marky Mark is an executive producer (whatever that means exactly) of the show.

The characters of the show seem utterly forgettable, except Piven, because how can a character be forgotten if they're saying the same thing over and over again to remind you? At this rate, in approximately 2.4 more episodes, all 17 million people in the metropolitan LA area will be told by Ari Gold that "they'll never work in this town again." Surely, Ari will eventually have to tell Jeremy Piven that he's through in Hollywood.

This isn't anything against Jeremy Piven, but he might actually not be that funny. He usually seems funniest when people mistake him for Jon Favreau. Could it be that, outside of PCU of course, his funniest work has been as a sidekick on Ellen? That would, of course, be the 1990s sitcom that is basically the same premise, albeit scripted, as the present-day talk show of the same name.

So yeah, Entourage is funny enough, but certainly doesn't seem to be a show being talked about the next day at work. Is it actually entertaining for the same person to say and do the same thing repeatedly? You tell me, you're the one reading this blog.