Tamsin Greig

Radio Times review

Matt LeBlanc has money problems and, knowing Matt as we do, he is pretty ruthless when he's in a hole. This episode sees the former Friends star's ghastly alter ego encourage his ex-wife to marry her inappropriate boyfriend (the alimony's a bit steep) and face the dreaded possibility of selling his vineyard. He may even have to let his beach cleaner go. Meanwhile, the entire LA TV industry seems to be after the new script written by Brit exiles Sean (Stephen Mangan) and Beverly (Tamsin Greig), who have somehow found their way back to La La Land.

Much of this is beautifully observed and achingly funny; and it was a good decision by writers Jeffrey Klarik and David Crane to call time on the bedhopping-fuelled rows between the three protagonists and create more moments for the sublimely talented LeBlanc, Mangan and Greig to riff off each other in the same scene. After four series it remains a pleasure, even if the usually excellent writing does strike the odd lazy, duff note.

You know times are hard when you've got to sell your dinosaur egg.

This is what life has come to for poor Matt LeBlanc in this comedy where he plays a ­fictionalised version of himself.

After having half his fortune embezzled by his dodgy business manager, Matt is ­devastated to discover he now has only $31million left.

Better get the violins out. No doubt his wallet's too small for his fifties and his diamond shoes are too tight. (OK, Friends geek Chandler said that first).

In this episode, the actor is told he needs to start reducing his spending and sell some of his assets (mainly property, cars and a dinosaur egg), otherwise he'll be skint by 2019.

"You spent $126,000 on a single bottle of brandy once owned by Al Capone?" asks his amazed accountant.

"Will you sell it?" Um no, he drank it.

And what about the aeroplane or vineyard? Off the table, apparently, though Matt is prepared to evict his father or fire his beach sweeper.

Meanwhile, Sean (Stephen Mangan) and Beverly (Tamsin Greig) agree to let three networks pitch for their new script.

Things don't look promising, with one wanting to cast big names, which didn't exactly work last time, and another wanting to ditch the main concept of the show. But will one be just right?

Elsewhere, Carol (Kathleen Rose Perkins) finally has to confront her new boss Helen, whose husband she once slept with and consequently broke up their marriage.

Totally awkward. Especially when Carol realises halfway through her apology that Helen has no idea what she's talking about.

Episodes has so much going for it. It's co-written by David Crane, the clever writer mainly responsible for Friends! It has Joey from Friends in the shape of Matt LeBlanc playing himself, Matt, as an older, greyer and slappably unwiser version of Joey from Friends! It has Tamsin Greig! And Kathleen Rose Perkins! And it's really underwhelming!

Part of the problem must be that, while we Brits relished every last drop of the earlier battles surrounding the fictional couple Tamsin and Stephen Mangan's sharp fictional script being dumbed down for America, the real US scriptwriters might now feel a touch of possibly justifiable unease at all the shrewd Briton/whalethick Statesider gags. And thus have to concentrate on affairs, and Matt/Joey's vaulting new stupidities. But it's a fresh series, and I'll let it settle in, and admittedly Mr Mangan's facial reactions to Matt's financial woes last week - turned out he'd been scammed for half his lifetime earnings, and thus had "just" $31m left - were as pricelessly and stoically old-country as old maids cycling through the morning mists on cheap and broken bikes.

Episodes, the comedy in which Matt LeBlanc plays Matt LeBlanc in a TV show about making a TV show, began its fourth series this week. Television has been making shows about making shows for many years, with mixed success. The problem, as with actors talking about acting, is that people at home tend not to consider television to be quite as important as the people who make it. Most of us worry more about running out of rinse aid.

Episodes adds another layer of meta by having Stephen Mangan and Tamsin Greig playing two British screenwriters trying to make sense of the American way of making a TV show. The joke has evolved over four years to the point where by now they all know that the sitcom they are making is godawful, and yet for reasons to do with executive-level willy-waving the show goes on. Episodes is by no means godawful - Mangan and Greig are two of our very best comic performers - but it does sail a little close to the wind in telling a story about a sitcom that's outstayed its welcome.

The problem is that Episodes has got a little too cosy. When it began "Matt LeBlanc" was about as likeable as Eugene Terre'Blanche, and the jokes at his expense had teeth. But four series in, that near-the-knuckle humour has lost its bite. LeBlanc has become essentially a nice guy with a few quirks. The show isn't roasting him, as they like to say in America. It's barely even searing him - in fact, his appearance starts to look like the kind of self-deprecation that's actually a little affected - it's the same borderline smugness you sometimes sense is the driving force behind W1A.

Radio Times review

Sean and Beverly's terrible Pucks!, which stars Matt LeBlanc's ghastly alter-ego, has risen from the dead - "like Jesus if Jesus was a s****y sitcom" says one character. Some people might think Episodes itself should have been put out of its misery a while back. But Friends stalwart and co-writer David Crane has managed to breathe more life into a comedy that is as much a wry look at transatlantic foibles as Crane's satire/revenge on the industry he (and co-scribe and real-life partner Jeffrey Klarik) know all too well.

Some of the lines feel a little ponderous in places but many are brilliant. And the chemistry between Stephen Mangan and Tamsin Greig's exasperated Brits and LeBlanc's desperately shallow but oddly likeable leading man keep this singing.

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TV review: Episodes, series 4, BBC Two

Reliable laughs and behind the scenes comedy from Matt LeBlanc, Stephen Mangan and Tamsin Greig.