Three series -- one limited run, the other two intended to go longer -- premiere this week, offering viewers the chance to watch Hollywood hangers-on, homeland security experts and firefighters.

"Entourage"

	"Entourage" When: 10 tonight on HBO. Starring: Adrian Grenier, Kevin Connolly. "The Grid" When: 9 p.m. tomorrow on TNT. Starring: Dylan McDermott, Julianna Margulies. "Rescue Me" When: 10 p.m. Wednesday on FX. Starring: Denis Leary.

Easily the best of the lot, "Entourage" is sort of a male version of "Sex and the City" that "The Mind of the Married Man" wanted to be but was not.

The HBO series, which has actor Mark Wahlberg as executive producer, chronicles the lives of four friends living large in Hollywood. Vince (Adrian Grenier), a hot, on-the-rise young movie star, is surrounded by three hangers-on, including his wannabe actor brother, Johnny Drama (Kevin Dillon), party guy Turtle (Jerry Ferrara) and the brains of the outfit, Eric (Kevin Connolly).

Vince can't make a decision to save his life, and he's so lazy he won't read scripts, relying on Eric, whom he pays to be his manager, to read scripts for him. That puts Eric in conflict with Vince's agent, Ari (Jeremy Piven), a smart, smarmy Hollywood shark.

All the guys use Vince to lure women ("C'mon, make out with me," Turtle coos to a girl in Vince's pool. "I'll show you where Vince eats breakfast."), and they have no problem mooching off of him. Eric is the conscience of the group, but he also realizes he's in over his head when it comes to managing Vince's business affairs.

Funny, insightful and seemingly realistic, "Entourage" (10 tonight) will appeal to fans of character drama and behind-the-scenes voyeurs.

"The Grid"

TNT, which never met a drama series it didn't almost immediately cancel, sometimes even before the thing aired, inches its way back into the series game with a six-hour limited-run series that looks an awful lot like last year's A&E drama "MI-5" (that show returns with new episodes later this year or next year) and USA Network's "Traffic" miniseries.

In "The Grid" (9 p.m. tomorrow and for the following three Mondays), Julianna Margulies stars as National Security Council counter-terrorism director Maren Jackson, who sets up an interagency team in the wake of a botched sarin gas attack in London. Dylan McDermott ("The Practice") is an FBI special agent on her team. With the help of others -- so many others they're all identified on screen with cards upon their initial introductions, which is helpful at first, but tiresome after a while -- the pair set out to thwart a possible attack on the New York and London subway systems.

"The Grid" also explores life from the terrorists' point of view in their training camps and among their unwilling associates, including a Muslim doctor (Silas Carson), and the series depicts the tension between American spies and their British counterparts.

It's not a bad show, but for a series about anti-terrorism efforts that are only about three years old in the real world, "The Grid" feels old-hat.

"Rescue Me"

Denis Leary returns to series TV as a New York City fireman haunted by the death of his cousin during the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Like his previous series, "The Job," "Rescue Me" remains a mix of comedy and drama.

The premiere, airing commercial-free on FX, contains colorful language some viewers will find objectionable, though it will come as no shock to Leary fans. There's also a juvenile scatological practical joke played, but much of the dialogue rings true.

Leary is a big New York Fire Department supporter, and "Rescue Me" (10 p.m. Wednesday) feels like a labor of love. The first episode shows some promise. We'll see where they take it.