Jeffrey Klarik

Episodes shouldn't, perhaps, work. The tale of a husband-wife writing team (Stephen Mangan and Tamsin Greig) who are persuaded, with a refreshing lack of reluctance, to sell out and take their fictionally Bafta-winning (and very British) comedy to Hollywood, thence to have it "made over" with gleeful disregard for such restrictive critical concerns as, for instance, taste - is surely too close to the experiences of many homegrown authors and film-makers for the memories to be anything other than vile at best. The Greig/Mangan original comedy, for instance, fictionally starred Richard Griffiths as a tweedy teacher in his twilight: transposed, the writers are both starstruck and horrified to find the grinsome Matt LeBlanc, Joey from Friends, in his place.

But it does work - and how. Partly through the subtlety of the writing, by Jeffrey Klarik and his partner David Crane, also of Friends fame: Friends, of course, wasn't written with British audiences in mind, but might as well have been, and its appreciation of "our" sense of humour (and our preconceptions about how the Americans could never quite "do" it) meant it became a crossover dream. As Episodes is now proving: it's been garnering much critical praise over there. Partly, too, thanks to the chemistry between Greig, Mangan and Matt LeBlanc, who's playing a lightly fictionalised version of "Matt LeBlanc" - kindly, vainglorious, deeply shallow to the extent that he has drunkenly invited his crazed stalker into his bed.

And one of the simple delights lies in seeing how far Tamsin Greig has come, from stoic work as Debbie Aldridge in The Archers, to a revelatory gift for comedy as Fran in the sublime Black Books, to - ta-dah! - sunny La-La-Land: Toto, we're not in Ambridge any more. This is just telly that makes you smile. Incidentally, one of the gags involves Matt, arrested on a borderline DUI charge, to be met with a beaming desk-sergeant who proudly boasts that his sister was nurse No 4 or something in one Friends episode. Matt does his winning best to pretend to remember her. (He's still booked.) On Good Morning Britain the other day, Matt popped up, only to have Ben Shephard remind him that he, Ben, had once "played" an interviewer in one Friends episode. Matt did his winning best to pretend to remember him. A trouper.

Can LeBlanc win an Emmy playing LeBlanc on 'Episodes'?

Matt LeBlanc admits to Gold Derby he resisted the idea of "Friends" co-creator David Crane and Jeffrey Klarik to spoof his image on the Showtime series Episodes.

'Episodes' exec: 'LeBlanc is underrated'

Episodes's executive producer Jeffrey Klarik has suggested that Matt LeBlanc is "underrated".

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.

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.

'Episodes' writer 'got revenge in show'

Jeffrey Klarik has claimed that he got "revenge" by writing new show Episodes.

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.