Matt LeBlanc

This satire on Stateside television studio politics may be only sporadically funny, but it's buoyed up by a lovely turn from Matt LeBlanc, who sends up his big-shot persona in style. In tonight's episode, LeBlanc struggles to persuade his former Friends colleagues to cameo on his faltering new show Pucks! ("Look Courteney, I understand - if you can't do it, you can't do it... but can you give me Jen's number?"). Meanwhile, Morning (Mircea Monroe) tries to set up Beverly (Tamsin Greig) with her raffish younger brother (James Purefoy).

In this week's episode of the clever comedy Matt LeBlanc, playing a grotesque version of himself, has an amusing stalker (Sophie Rundle) to deal with. She's been following LeBlanc around since she was a cancer-stricken child who loved Friends, and now she's grown-up enough to track his movements via Facebook.

Bad news at the network. "Look at these ratings!" wails studio executive Merc from his bathroom. "It's like 9/11! It's like watching the towers fall!" The trouble is, Episodes was a lot more fun when the sitcom its characters are making, Pucks!, was doing well. Now everyone's worried and/or angry, Sean and Beverley's relationship is on the rocks, and it's all more downbeat than you want in a Friday-night comedy. And when it stops being gloomy it turns schmaltzy. On the plus side, there's another scene where Matt LeBlanc has to act drunk (he's good at that), while his English friends try to talk him out of doing anything that might get their show cancelled.

Oh dear, it's really not a good day for Matt LeBlanc in tonight's episode of the critically acclaimed comedy, in which he plays an exaggerated version of his real-life self. His role in sitcom Pucks! is drastically reduced to make way for some younger, hotter, more popular talent. How will writers Sean (Stephen Mangan) and Beverly (Tamsin Grieg) break the news to him?

With ratings plummeting on the show-within-the-show Pucks!, market research is called in to save the day. Matt LeBlanc, from bitter experience, is no fan: "Yeah, research said Joey was gonna be a hit!" He's even less happy when the results come in showing that another cast member's hair is testing better with the audience than he is, leading to an episode where he's practically written out of his own show. Elsewhere, Beverly is missing hanging out with Sean, and discovering he has a Facebook page nearly sends her over the edge.

The TV stars who are just being themselves

A little self-parody can go a long way. Just ask Matt LeBlanc...

Pucks! takes a time out tonight when news breaks that Merc's father has died, furnishing the writers of Episodes with all the tragicomic potential of a funeral. As with so much of this series, it's a qualified success, as a procession of competitive mourning techniques (muffin basket? charity donation?) open up further faultlines in Sean and Bev's moribund relationship. Stephen Mangan, Tamsin Greig and Matt LeBlanc are now displaying the sort of relaxed chemistry that only comes with time, and the latter struts off with most of the best lines (the less politically correct, the better). But the attempts at pathos fall flat - these characters haven't done enough to earn our sympathy yet. And why sideline Daisy Haggard, whose formidable arsenal of disgusted expressions was such a pleasure in Series 1?

Blessed with a rich basic idea, Episodes (BBC Two) forges on. The basic idea is that the Americans are copying a British hit comedy show and, of course, changing everything. The British writers, played by Tamsin Greig and Stephen Mangan, are on the spot in LA to help with the task of butchering their own creation. Matt LeBlanc, always the funniest of the men in Friends, plays the randy American star. There is nothing and nobody I have so far mentioned that I can't laugh at, not even Stephen Mangan, who, after Dirk Gently, had moved, I thought, irretrievably into the category of Not Funny. The trick with Episodes is that it satirises the Yanks while accurately borrowing all their best precision. Television about television is hard to do. Aaron Sorkin's Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip was a sprawling mess compared to Episodes. There is an advantage to keeping the premise simple.

"It's like dealing with cave people," says an exasperated Matt LeBlanc. The reason for his ire? Muffins. More specifically, the complete inability of Sean and Beverly to negotiate the complexities of Hollywood-style death and catering etiquette when network chief Merc's father breathes his last. Episodes is a series that's at its best when it's most excruciating. Witness the funeral scene when Merc shares memories of his dad with Pucks! star Morning Randolph: "Didn't he grab your ass?" "He was so full of life."

The satire isn't always subtle, but there's still much to enjoy in this British-led LA-based sitcom. It's the Americans who provide most of the laughs. Tonight, network head Merc Lapidus's (John Pankow) father dies, prompting a flurry of competitive condolence gifts ("a turkey the size of a Prius") that leave Brits Beverly (Tamsin Greig) and Sean (Stephen Mangan) utterly bewildered. Matt (Matt LeBlanc), meanwhile, is nervous about attending the funeral. He's having an affair with Merc's blind wife ("it's good, you don't have to suck in your gut").