David Crane (I)

Episodes Series 2

BBC Two's critically acclaimed international sitcom Episodeswill return for a new nine part series next year, written by David Crane (Friends) and Jeffery Klarik (Mad About You). The series has been re-commissioned by Janice Hadlow, Controller of BBC Two and BBC Controller of Comedy Commissioning, Cheryl Taylor.

There has been a lot of advanced publicity about the "return" of Matt LeBlanc - Joey from Friends - in the new comedy Episodes (BBC2). It was either a clever postmodern joke or a foolhardy gambit that the star of the show didn't appear in the first episode of Episodes, other than a brief glimpse of him driving a car.

I'm inclined to think it was a smart move, if only because it gave Tamsin Greig and Stephen Mangan a chance to establish themselves without the distraction of LeBlanc's comeback moment. They play a married couple of English sitcom writers who are wooed to Hollywood to make a US version of their hit British show. Once there, of course, all the promises they were made evaporate as quickly as a spilt cocktail in the Californian sun.

It's not a bad premise, the opener had some promising scenes, and Greig (who would be a shoo-in for the lead part if there were ever an Emma Thompson biopic) and Mangan strike a nice balance between insecurity and irony. But if there's one thing that Hollywood excels in it is sending itself up, and there was nothing in the first episode to suggest that Episodes (co-written by Friends creator David Crane) is going to deliver a fresh or especially funny perspective on a familiar scene.

Everything remained safely within the confines of established tropes, as though the novelty of having English leads would be enough in itself to give new life to an old joke. That may change with the introduction of LeBlanc, who is said to reveal a "darker" side of his real-life character. As no one knows what LeBlanc is like in real life, what that means is darker than Joey Tribbiani, the lovable dope from Friends now immortalised on permanent cable rerun. Which is like saying darker than Noddy.

For the show to gain the rocket blast that will take it beyond a comfortable observational orbit, it will need LeBlanc to draw on a mighty payload of bitterness lurking in a pitch-black soul. That's a tough challenge for a limited comedy actor who had the extraordinary fortune to become a multimillionaire global star.

You really have to admire BBC2 for being so single-minded and indeed innovative in its quest for comedies without laughs. After Roger and Val Have Just Got In and The Trip comes Episodes, a cautionary tale of English scriptwriters who uproot and move to Hollywood. Tamsin Greig and Stephen Mangan are excellent as creators of the award-winning comedy series Lyman's Boys, who fall for the blandishments of a US TV executive and agree to re-create their successful show in the States. But on their arrival in LA things go wrong as they are subjected to fake smiles and doublespeak as the network corrupts their beloved creation. Episodes has everything going for it, including scripts co-written by Friends' David Crane, yet it never catches light. Situations are laboured and - where's the wit?

An Anglo-American coproduction between stalwart British comedy outlet Hat Trick and acclaimed US writers David Crane (co-creator of Friends) and Jeffrey Klarik (Mad About You), Episodes is something of a curate's egg.

The inherent problems of transposing British comedy to an American setting are directly confronted within the premise of the series itself: terribly postmodern.

Former Green Wing co-stars Stephen Mangan and Tamsin Greig play successful married screenwriters whose award-winning sitcom is picked up by a powerful American network.

Whisked over to LA, they're shocked to discover that their quintessentially British series starring Richard Griffiths (who cameos as a version of himself) as an "erudite, verbally dextrous headmaster of an elite boy's academy" has been recast as a vehicle for wholly unsuitable Friends/Joey star Matt LeBlanc (also playing himself, inevitably as an egotistical buffoon).

Evidently aware of the ignoble tradition of point-missing American adaptations of great British comedies (Fawlty Towers without Basil? Why not!), Crane and Klarik have devised a sporadically amusing if rather obvious satire encompassing all the usual targets and stereotypes.

The Brits-out-of-water are cute and witty, the Americans shallow and crass. TV executives are liars.

Actors are self-absorbed. And despite protestations to the contrary, Hollywood just doesn't "get" British humour: the clever irony being that Episodes is written by a pair of witty American Anglophiles cocking a snook at the culture that made them millionaires.

The hollowness of the entertainment industry has been satirised so often, the curiously muted Episodes doesn't offer anything new. It feels like a missed opportunity, despite the odd bright spot and the natural chemistry between Mangan and the underrated Greig.

This rather tasty new cynical-outsiders-in-LA sitcom is a very transatlantic affair; it's from British powerhouse company Hat Trick (Father Ted, Outnumbered) and Friends producer David Crane.

Stephen Mangan and Tamsin Greig are an English husband-and-wife writing team who cautiously move to Tinseltown to remake their hit TV show, while Matt LeBlanc plays the star they must cast who is primed to wreak havoc on their careers and marriage.

Video: High expectations for new BBC show

New BBC Two series Episodes is being tipped as the most anticipated comedy of the year.

Friends creator David Crane is behind the show and it features Matt LeBlanc from Friends in his TV comeback, playing a version of himself.

Green Wing stars Stephen Mangan and Tamsin Greig play British TV producers who take their hit UK show to the States to remake it.

But for Mangan and Greig things go wrong from the start when they arrive in LA.

Episodes Review: Brits Getting L.A.'d

Tipped as 'the most anticipated comedy of the year' (by the BBC and me personally), this new series has all the ingredients of a success - in the post-modern vein of Extras. Devised by Friends creator David Crane, along with Jeffrey Klarik, there are many wonderfully familiar faces from both sides of the pond. This pilot only offers about two minutes of Matt LeBlanc time, and the flow is a little uneven; but there are plenty of good gags to keep us watching.

If a British sitcom gets better-than-average ratings, wins a couple of awards and isn't too downright weird to get lost in translation, it's not unusual for an American TV network to approach its creators with a mind to a Stateside remake. Probably the best known example of this is the American version of The Office, now in its seventh season, but the practice has been going on since at least the 1970s, when Steptoe and Son, rather surreally, was remade in Los Angeles as Sanford and Son.

What's little discussed, though, is how a behind-the-scenes collaboration between cynical British writers and hard-nosed US executives plays out - which is where this new sitcom, written by David Crane (Friends) and Jeffrey Klarik (Mad About You), comes in.

It stars Stephen Mangan and Tamsin Greig as a British husband-and-wife team who produce a successful show called Lyman's Boys, which is duly scooped up by a US network. They jet out to California and start working with their new colleagues, all of whom seem intent on stamping out any hint of fusty Britishness, starting with the show's corpulent lead, Julian (Richard Griffiths), whom they decide to replace with the wonderfully unsuitable Matt LeBlanc (Joey from Friends). The first episode is high on plot development and low on gags, but the series does improve and is worth sticking with.

The US writers exposing the follies of American TV

A new BBC Two sitcom, from Friends creator David Crane, lifts the lid on the bizarre ways TV studios really work. Chris Harvey reports.

Episodes, which got uproarious laughter in cut-down form at the Television Critics Association press tour in July, does not disappoint an ounce as it rolls through a seven-episode season. It also signals a savvy return to television for LeBlanc, who manages to be the butt of the joke one moment then hilariously likable the next. It takes confidence to play yourself but not really yourself and to know that moving past Joey and Friends means a simultaneous embracing/mocking of the legacy.

The premise of Episodes is simple (and all too real). Over-the-top, hug-happy, faux-sincere network president Merc Lapidus (John Pankow) meets the happily married writing team of Sean and Beverly Lincoln (Stephen Mangan and Tamsin Greig) right as they've snared a slew of BAFTA Awards for their (fictional) hit series, Lyman's Boys.

Lapidus loves the series and wants it on his network. He tries to woo the duo to the States, saying the show's perfect as is and would require a mere 20 minutes of their magic to make it Americanized. They can spend the rest of their time counting the money and screwing in the pool.

So they make the leap. And, not surprisingly, it's a long drop. Lapidus wants the British star of the series that has run for four seasons to audition - despite Sean and Beverly having told him he had the job.

Turns out, Lapidus doesn't watch much TV. "There's a chance that Merc might not have actually seen your show," says Carol (Kathleen Rose Perkins), second-in-command to Lapidus. "What?!" Sean and Beverly say in tandem. "I'm not saying he hasn't seen it," Carol says. "Has he seen it?" Beverly asks. "No," Carol says, shaking her head sadly.

And so it goes. Episodes was created by David Crane and Jeffrey Klarik, the writing duo that knows more than a little something about how the industry works. (Crane wrote for Friends, and Klarik wrote for Mad About You; both wrote for The Class.) There's so much delicious fun-house-mirror truth here. When the British thespian (played with gravitas by Richard Griffiths) does the audition, Lapidus and everybody else howls with laughter. They ask him to step outside for a moment, and Lapidus says, "Is it me or does anyone else think he comes off a bit too English?" They then make him read it again with an American accent. Nobody laughs.

Episodes might be inside baseball to some, but viewers are savvy enough about real-life industry types to get the joke. (God help them if they really were to see how shows evolve.) One of the sly bits in the series is Myra (Daisy Haggard), the head of comedy development, who has the same sour smile and confused look at all times - a visual joke that never fails.

Mangan and Greig are exceptionally good as the fish-out-of-water Brits, horrified that their show is getting rejiggered. Mangan's Sean is seduced by Hollywood, and Greig's Beverly is repulsed and appalled at the cluelessness. When the network hires LeBlanc to play the lead, Episodes takes off to all kinds of unexpected places - with LeBlanc getting a glorious showcase - and the show avoids any potential trouble spots.

In fairness, not every network would take a British series called Lyman's Boys, about a headmaster at an elite boys boarding school, and change it to Pucks! about a hockey coach at said school. But then again, one or two would. And that's all the truth Episodes needs to tap into.