Episodes

There weren't many duff notes in Friends, the slick NBC sitcom that ran and ran from 1994 to 2004 and, for those of us with homes full of teenagers, is still running and running. But one of its duffest notes was the casting of Helen Baxendale to play Ross's British wife, Emily. Nothing against Baxendale, but amid all that sassy American humour, she seemed as flaccidly English as a stale Rich Tea biscuit surrounded by freshly baked chocolate-chip cookies.

In fairness, that was kind of the point; we weren't meant to warm to Emily. And Baxendale, deliberately, didn't get many killer lines. But it wasn't just that; whip-smart, wisecracking American humour just doesn't sound right emerging from a British mouth. For the same reason, Daphne Moon (Jane Leeves) was my least favourite character in the otherwise sublime Frasier. It's not that British actors aren't capable of wonderful TV comedy, just that the dialogue in the best US sitcoms is rooted in New York-Jewish traditions of razor-sharp put-downs and one-liners. Think Woody Allen and Neil Simon. On British television, comic dialogue has a different rhythm.

Anyway, all of this brings me to Episodes, in which Matt LeBlanc (dim, amiable Joey in Friends) plays a heightened version of himself in the latest example of what is rapidly becoming a TV genre all of its own: celebrities indulging in a game of double-bluff with us, playing themselves as slightly more neurotic and prima donna-ish than they actually are, which of course suggests that they're not neurotic prima donnas at all. Steve Coogan did this beautifully in The Trip recently, as did Larry David in Curb Your Enthusiasm. In Episodes, it is LeBlanc's turn. He plays Matt LeBlanc, hugely rich and successful thanks to Friends, who to the horror of married British comedy writers Beverly and Sean (Tamsin Greig and Stephen Mangan) is cast as the lead in the US version of their hit UK show. They wanted their British lead, a fruity RSC type called Julian (Richard Griffiths). But they get LeBlanc.

So far, so good. It's a great idea, with great opening credits: a script flying from London to LA. And there are certainly precedents for television successfully turning a mirror on itself; The Larry Sanders Show of blessed memory did it exquisitely. Moreover, there's something painfully real about British comedy writers being lured to LA by the sweet blandishments of network bosses and the promise of a Spanish-style hacienda in Beverly Hills, only for the semi-detached back in Chiswick to seem even more alluring once the dream starts to sour. You should hear the British writing duo Laurence Marks and Maurice Gran, who did the whole hacienda thing, on the subject. Yet I find myself unable to give a fat thumbs-up after the opening Episodes, and the problem lies with Greig and Mangan, or at least with their script. In a British context, they're both terrific comic performers. Greig was pitch-perfect as the hapless heroine in David Renwick's wonderful Love Soup. But here, trading waspish one-liners in the land of Jack Benny and George Burns, they seemed out of place. And although that's the whole point - that they are out of place - they should at least be talking like Brits, not Americans.

Still, it's early days. I have a feeling that Episodes will get better the more LeBlanc gets involved. And there have already been some lovely gags, like the friskiness that gripped Beverly and Sean when they saw that the vast bath in their rented Beverly Hills home could easily accommodate both of them, only for it to wear off while they waited for the damn thing to fill.

Episodes episode 1 review: series premiere

Stephen Mangan and Tamsin Greig star in the new comedy series Episodes. Here's Ryan's review of its debut show...

Episodes, BBC Two

Episodes may prove to be the zenith of television's obsession with making television about making television. It was certainly a handy primer for anyone who fell asleep around 2000 (perhaps during My Hero; you are forgiven) and missed all the dominant strands of TV comedy emerging over the next decade. We hadn't simply been here before; Episodes was incubated in the post-ironic, multilayered comedic landscape in which we all now live. The success of the US version of The Office was referenced within the first five minutes. I'm surprised it took so long.

Unfortunate Episodes

James Cook is already no fan of Matt LeBlanc's new sitcom.

Episodes 1.1 review

Considering Episodes is co-written by one of the people behind Friends, who must have churned out hundreds of joke-a-minute scripts, it was a little puzzling to see Episodes play things so relaxed. Less a comedy, more a lighthearted drama with a few amusing moments.

Episodes review

After feeling rather underwhelmed by a lot of recent BBC comedy, I really enjoyed the first Episodes. It was classy, grown-up and - best of all - funny.

TV Review: Episodes

The seriously long pause as Greig weighed up whether to explain the whole "TV characters are not real people" shocker to the two sock puppets was comedy gold, perhaps funnier than anything Crane and Klarik could come up with.

Americans just don't get our comedy. Our irony, our laugh-at-ourselves self-deprecation, our way with a juicy double entendre. At least that's the slightly lazy premise at the bitterly amusing heart of Episodes (BBC2), which finds a pair of Bafta-winning British writers heading to Hollywood to create a US version of their pet project, only to have it hijacked by those insensitive Yanks.

If you can get over that self-satisfied bump - from Till Death Us Do Part to The Office, the Americans actually have a respectable record of translating our laughs to their market - Episodes is actually a sharp and slick take on how we British revel in our own inferiority complex.

As the married writing duo, played with neat mix-and-match timing by Stephen Mangan and Tamsin Greig, get swept off their feet by the American Dream, their cynical posturing looks like so much hot air. They want it - the fame, the money - and they want it bad. Only it would be gauche to say so.

You could tell this was a British series because the set-up - having Matt LeBlanc foisted on them as leading man when the part was written for Richard Griffiths in History Boys mode - took an entire episode. The Americans would have done it in ten minutes.

The US comedy convention of starting a new series with a double-bill would have been one well worth copying after endless trails teasing us with the presence of LeBlanc, complete with distinguished gent salt-and-pepper hair. He only popped up briefly at the beginning and in the trailer for episode two. It left you feeling a tad twisted and manipulated - rather like the writers we were supposed to feel sorry for.

Episodes review

The whole script is wonderfully embroidered with moments of witty pathos, and is beautifully played by the whole cast, among who Tamsin Greig is especially exquisite, sometimes hardly breathing the lines to convey her despair at the butchery of the original show.

'Comedy about a comedy'

Here comes one of those 'wonder why no one had thought of that before?' ideas.