Tamsin Greig

Radio Times review

In this episode we meet Matt LeBlanc's dad, his imaginary screen dad, in the best scene of the series so far. Stories have appeared on TMZ that Matt has gone into rehab, and Matt knows where they came from: he forgot to send dad his cheque, and this is revenge. So he storms round there - with Sean and Beverly in tow - to confront him.

What follows has more comic voltage than the entirety of some previous episodes, as the pair trade insults in front of the mortified Brits - and few actors do mortified better than Tamsin Greig and Stephen Mangan. It's a cracking set piece and elsewhere the plot is coming to a boil nicely. Also, look out: in the delightfully tasteless mental health storyline, unbalanced network boss Castor is off his meds.

Three seasons in, Brit writers Bev (Tamsin Greig) and Sean (Stephen Mangan) are still trying to acclimatise to the bewildering world of Hollywood, and Matt LeBlanc is still bumbling around like a bear with a bees' nest on his head. But Episodes does feel like a sharper, snappier creature this time around, less interested in the internecine workings of the showbiz industry and more in the venal, shallow bubble around Los Angeles - new-age therapy, partner-swapping et al.

The third series of Robert Popper's sitcom following a dysfunctional north London brood begins with a surprise for Jackie and Martin (Tamsin Greig and Paul Ritter), as elder son Adam (Simon Bird) brings a girl to dinner. Unfazed by Martin washing dog poo off his foot in the toilet, plucky Emma fits right in. Things soon turn sour, however, when Adam's texts are intercepted by eight-year-old neighbour Katie, who makes child's play of blackmail. As usual, FND expertly treads the line between relatable and reliably potty.

After something of a hiatus (the last series screened in 2012) we're back at the North London home of the bickering Goodman family for more middle-class Jewish mayhem. Writer and producer Robert Popper's sitcom may have a modest canvas - it rarely strays beyond its four suburban walls and plot development is minimal - but the show packs plenty of colourful farce into its frantic half-hour slot.

The opener of tonight's third run is no exception, hinging on a premise rife with comic opportunity. Eldest son Adam (Simon Bird) is bringing his new girlfriend Emma (Sophia Di Martino) round for dinner. As expected Mum (Tamsin Greig) has an eye on marriage potential, brother Jonny (Tom Rosenthal) sets out to embarrass and Dad (Paul Ritter) makes no attempt to curb his eccentricities.

Whilst the family dynamics are sharply observed and pleasingly quirky, this is soft-centred, amiable stuff bolstered by some top-notch performances. Ritter, as ever, is superb as shamelessly shirtless Martin, imbuing the character's oddities with pathos. A witty Di Martino also stands out, sweetly unfazed by the chaotic clan she's been invited into.

One-liners are thin on the ground but Popper's real skill is in his structuring, pulling together the episode's separate comic strands into a satisfying, climactic whole. There's no breaking new ground here and a fourth series might stretch things too far, but for now the Goodmans are still worth spending part of your evening with.

Interview: Tamsin Greig

"I have a friend whose family all call each other these nicknames," Tamsin reveals. "They are meant very tenderly. It just goes to show how much Friday Night Dinner has caught on."

Pucks! is out of luck. The struggling sitcom has been bumped to Saturday nights, which presents awkward moments for Matt LeBlanc at the network's press party. Elsewhere, sex dominates the agenda of seemingly everyone, with Merc still battling his addiction, and Sean and Bev visiting a sex therapist and becoming all coy, mumbly and British in the process. Still not the barbed Hollywood satire it thinks it is, but Tamsin Greig and Stephen Mangan have an easy rapport and LeBlanc is clearly having loads of fun portraying his fictional self.

Radio Times review

The comedy hovers below the waist as Sean and Beverly visit a couples counsellor (a straight-talking sex therapist, it turns out) to address their problems "fornicationally". "If your vagina could speak, what would it say to Sean right now?" wonders the therapist, an invitation Beverly responds to with a beautifully eccentric piece of comedy - top work from Tamsin Greig.

But while Sean has difficulty upping his game, as it were, network boss Castor has the opposite problem, as an admiring Carol has very much noticed. Beverly thinks sleeping with the boss (again) would be a mistake: "I think he's the cliff and you're Thelma and Louise," she warns. But when did Carol ever listen to what anybody else said?

Three episodes in and the third series of Episodes has settled in comfortably. Which is rather the problem. The main charm of Episodes was always its awkwardness.

Initially, Sean and Bev were the outsiders bringing their English reserve and idiom to the sledgehammer of the Hollywood TV industry; now, though, their accents apart, they are both native LA. They've long since ceased to care about the show they are writing and are jaundiced insiders in the dream-factory, churning out second-rate scripts in exchange for first-rate money. In short, a key part of the sit has gone out of the sitcom: Episodes has become exactly the type of show it used to have a pop at.

It is, at least, still a com. Tamsin Greig, Stephen Mangan and Matt LeBlanc are all wonderfully good actors with near-perfect comic timing, so there are still plenty of laughs to be had. Just not as many as there used to be. It's become routine. The scripts feel a bit saggier, though it's possible that's part of a meta gag in which writers David Crane and Jeffrey Klarik are mimicking the trajectory of Sean and Bev's own writing. If so, it's a dangerous game.

The key faultline is that Episodes has written itself into a cul-de-sac. There's nothing left to it apart from a series of relationships and most of the interesting things that can happen have already happened. Sean and Bev have split up, slept with other people and are now back together-ish, while Matt is just Matt. There's some fun to be had in the ongoing "Will Sean, Won't Sean, ever get a stiffy again?" saga, but you feel that Greig and Mangan are working overtime trying to make it funny. They know each other so well that they can finish each other's sentences and gags; more worryingly, so can I. I'm not even sure I'm that bothered whether Sean does get a stiffy or not any more.

Towards the end of this episode, Bev told Carol that she and Sean wanted to get Pucks! canned so they could go back to England. I couldn't help agreeing. Except we know that's almost certainly not going to happen as the BBC has already commissioned a fourth series. Like Sean and Bev, Episodes has become a victim of its own success.

Episodes review

It's a banal relationship comedy, with no special ingredient at all. Stephen Mangan and Tamsin Greig are a geeky, immature couple, trying to write a hit show but out of their depth among the U.S. has-beens and permatanned executives. It might as well be called Californian Luvvies.

Welcome back LA-set sitcom Episodes for a third series, once again mixing satire and soap opera to effervescent effect. In fact, Episodes is so good that it is even helping me overcome my - admittedly irrational - aversion to Tamsin Greig.

I do have two small quibbles. First is the scarcity of my favourite character, the heroically vulgar TV producer Merc (John Pankow), who lost his job, wife and mistress at the end of series two. However, I am confident Merc will soon make a triumphant return, like some foul-mouthed phoenix, before this run finishes.

The second quibble, as a concerned licence payer, is the enormous electricity bill the BBC must be running up trying to light the Brit-based interior scenes to look like sunny California.