Matt LeBlanc

Episodes saw LeBlanc reprise role of drunken man-baby

Tonight's episode was essentially half an hour of Tamsin Greig doing her best impression of an antelope on the lookout for danger, interspersed with the odd zinger from Matt LeBlanc.

Four episodes in and this sitcom continues to polarise opinion: some critics think it's subtle and rewarding; others have argued that it lacks zest. In tonight's instalment, Tamsin Greig and Stephen Mangan's characters - a writing duo whose British sitcom is being remade in LA - are forced to travel to a remote bar to pick up a drunk Matt LeBlanc, who's the star of their show. Be warned: the language is very rude.

Never having pondered the subject of Matt LeBlanc and his girth, this week's Episodes (BBC2) proved a scary beast as Sean (Stephen Mangan) and the man who will always be Joey in Friends entered into a full-blown bromance. Well, not quite full blown but it's heading that way.

'It could invade a small country,' was Sean's report on the Joey manhood. He was telling this to his wife, which was a bit of a turn-up.

For what started out as a bash the Yanks satire is morphing into an oddball love triangle, Sean seduced by the big man his wife despises.

Does that mean it's taken its eye off the ball? Who knows but it will be fun seeing how it turns out.

Sean and Beverly's Brit sitcom has taken some major knocks in its voyage across the pond.

This week, they start shooting the US version - now called Pucks! - and the middle-aged British headmaster of their script has been turned into a hockey coach played by Matt LeBlanc.

Beverly's dislike of Matt knows no bounds, so she's even more put out when Sean takes a road trip to Las Vegas with him and develops a serious ­man crush. We also learn that the former Friends star could have had enjoyed a ­flourishing career as a porn star - and he just can't resist showing Sean his ­credentials. "It could attack a city," Sean reports back.

Although it doesn't quite hit the comedy high notes, there's plenty to enjoy and the characters feel like real people rather than cartoons. That goes for everyone from Tamsin Greig's Mary Poppins-ish scriptwriter, to their ass of an American studio boss.

Three episodes in, and this comedy about how American studios set about adapting British TV series isn't getting any better. Matt LeBlanc is actually rather charming as an exaggerated version of himself, although unlike Steve Coogan in The Trip or the brilliantly excruciating guest cameos in Extras, he hasn't been asked to venture very near the knuckle when sending himself up. However, the main problem is that Stephen Mangan and Tamsin Greig, who play the two British scriptwriters out of their depth in Hollywood, are just plain annoying. All their jokes at the expense of the vain, insincere Americans fall flat because their smug reserve is equally unlikeable. Tonight, LeBlanc and Sean (Mangan) try to bond in Las Vegas.

In Episodes, the gap between Britain and America is explored from the perspective of married TV comedy writers Beverly and Sean (Tamsin Greig and Stephen Mangan), whose hit show is taken up by a US network and Americanised beyond all recognition. After last week's opener I aired some reservations about the rhythms of the comedic banter, but hoped that it would get better when Matt LeBlanc (playing a souped-up version of himself) joined in the fun, and last night, with several very good gags both verbal and visual, it did.

Episodes raises a few laughs

After much teasing in the series opener the second instalment of Episodes finally sees the arrival of ace in the deck Matt LeBlanc.

The second episode of the US/UK development-hell sitcom in which Matt LeBlanc is cast as the star against show creators Tamsin Greig and Stephen Mangan's will. This time the two Brits meet LeBlanc at a dinner party at the home of their obnoxiously equivocating network boss Merc, managing to offend their new star, as he tries to convince them of his ability to un-Joey himself.

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.

Midway through the first episode of Episodes, Tamsin Greig gawped in awe at the swish-pad-with-pool that Hollywood had made available to her and Stephen Mangan and said: "Crikey, our show's not this good!" Pretty brave of this comedy's writers to include that line, I reckon, because it's bound to be pounced on by anyone who finds Episodes a bit too cute, clever-clever and in-jokey. Like me.

See what I did there? Stepped out of the role of TV critic then stepped back in. Episodes steps out of the traditional comedy format then steps back in. I also presupposed you're interested in TV criticism in itself. Episodes presupposes you're interested in TV production in itself. A lot of shows do this now: they're shows about shows. Look at us, aren't we wonderful! Or they're full of actors playing themselves. Look at us, aren't we post-modern! There's been Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip and Moving Wallpaper and Grandma's House, but so far only one instant classic of small-screen self-referencing: The Trip.

Greig and Mangan play an award-winning English comedy-writing couple lured to Tinseltown by a top exec who showers them with praise ("I love your show! I wanna have sex with your show!") and loganberries. Greig's character's grandmother used to make jam with them; the exec (John Pankow) is touched by this story, especially since the only noteworthy thing about his grandmother is that "she lives in Morristown, New Jersey, and hates black people".

I laughed at this but, in the opening half-hour, not much else. Of course the exec hadn't actually seen Greig and Mangan's show (he loved its success, that's all). Of course he was going to dump its English star and replace him with an American (Matt LeBlanc, playing the as-yet-unseen Matt LeBlanc). And of course the dream home where our writers are installed has Greek columns made of papier-mache, having previously been the location for a reality show (How on earth could I have foreseen that? Okay, I didn't). I'll stick with Episodes, in the hope that the real fun will begin when LeBlanc looks in the mirror and, thinking about his post-Friends career, asks: "How you doin'?" But a key theme bothers me: does the average viewer really care if vulgar Americans make a mess of the odd British show? And anyway, doesn't the US make the best TV in the world these days?