Episodes

Matt LeBlanc curbs his enthusiasm, playing himself alongside Stephen Mangan and Tamsin Greig in this comedy about two British TV writers whose award-winning show about a charming, erudite English headmaster is picked up for a US remake by a boorish US producer who immediately inserts LeBlanc into the lead role. It lacks big laughs, but has a similar charm to another Mangan vehicle, Free Agents.

LeBlanc's 'brave' move on to British TV

Friends' star Matt LeBlanc's TV comeback is a "brave choice" according to his Episodes co-star Stephen Mangan.

You really have to admire BBC2 for being so single-minded and indeed innovative in its quest for comedies without laughs. After Roger and Val Have Just Got In and The Trip comes Episodes, a cautionary tale of English scriptwriters who uproot and move to Hollywood. Tamsin Greig and Stephen Mangan are excellent as creators of the award-winning comedy series Lyman's Boys, who fall for the blandishments of a US TV executive and agree to re-create their successful show in the States. But on their arrival in LA things go wrong as they are subjected to fake smiles and doublespeak as the network corrupts their beloved creation. Episodes has everything going for it, including scripts co-written by Friends' David Crane, yet it never catches light. Situations are laboured and - where's the wit?

Green Wing fans will be overjoyed to see Stephen Mangan and Tamsin Greig back on screen together. In this new series they are scriptwriting husband and wife Beverly and Sean Lincoln who get an irresistible offer to transfer their hit British series - Lyman's Boys - to the US.

The scene set in their new producer's office in Hollywood is a brilliantly crafted exchange of double-talk and flim-flam and you can bet it's based on bitter experience, tales of woe and the frustrations of talented Brits who've had to deal with knuckle-headed American TV bosses. The star of Lincoln's show - set in a boys' school - is venerable British actor Julian Bullard played by the stout and silver-haired Richard Griffiths. By next week, he'll have been recast as his polar opposite.

This first episode is enjoyable if not quite as laden with zingers like Glee. But if it's a hit, it makes you wonder how the US version of Episodes might turn out.

An Anglo-American coproduction between stalwart British comedy outlet Hat Trick and acclaimed US writers David Crane (co-creator of Friends) and Jeffrey Klarik (Mad About You), Episodes is something of a curate's egg.

The inherent problems of transposing British comedy to an American setting are directly confronted within the premise of the series itself: terribly postmodern.

Former Green Wing co-stars Stephen Mangan and Tamsin Greig play successful married screenwriters whose award-winning sitcom is picked up by a powerful American network.

Whisked over to LA, they're shocked to discover that their quintessentially British series starring Richard Griffiths (who cameos as a version of himself) as an "erudite, verbally dextrous headmaster of an elite boy's academy" has been recast as a vehicle for wholly unsuitable Friends/Joey star Matt LeBlanc (also playing himself, inevitably as an egotistical buffoon).

Evidently aware of the ignoble tradition of point-missing American adaptations of great British comedies (Fawlty Towers without Basil? Why not!), Crane and Klarik have devised a sporadically amusing if rather obvious satire encompassing all the usual targets and stereotypes.

The Brits-out-of-water are cute and witty, the Americans shallow and crass. TV executives are liars.

Actors are self-absorbed. And despite protestations to the contrary, Hollywood just doesn't "get" British humour: the clever irony being that Episodes is written by a pair of witty American Anglophiles cocking a snook at the culture that made them millionaires.

The hollowness of the entertainment industry has been satirised so often, the curiously muted Episodes doesn't offer anything new. It feels like a missed opportunity, despite the odd bright spot and the natural chemistry between Mangan and the underrated Greig.

This rather tasty new cynical-outsiders-in-LA sitcom is a very transatlantic affair; it's from British powerhouse company Hat Trick (Father Ted, Outnumbered) and Friends producer David Crane.

Stephen Mangan and Tamsin Greig are an English husband-and-wife writing team who cautiously move to Tinseltown to remake their hit TV show, while Matt LeBlanc plays the star they must cast who is primed to wreak havoc on their careers and marriage.

Stephen Mangan interview

Actor Stephen Mangan, 38, is best known for his role in comedy show Green Wing. He's also appeared in comedy series Free Agents and in British comedy films Beyond The Pole and Confetti. He currently stars in new sitcom Episodes.

Video: High expectations for new BBC show

New BBC Two series Episodes is being tipped as the most anticipated comedy of the year.

Friends creator David Crane is behind the show and it features Matt LeBlanc from Friends in his TV comeback, playing a version of himself.

Green Wing stars Stephen Mangan and Tamsin Greig play British TV producers who take their hit UK show to the States to remake it.

But for Mangan and Greig things go wrong from the start when they arrive in LA.

Episodes Review: Brits Getting L.A.'d

Tipped as 'the most anticipated comedy of the year' (by the BBC and me personally), this new series has all the ingredients of a success - in the post-modern vein of Extras. Devised by Friends creator David Crane, along with Jeffrey Klarik, there are many wonderfully familiar faces from both sides of the pond. This pilot only offers about two minutes of Matt LeBlanc time, and the flow is a little uneven; but there are plenty of good gags to keep us watching.

Episodes shows what can go wrong in remaking telly

... but what would the US networks make of Last Of The Summer Wine?