Episodes

Radio Times review

In theory he's the star of the show, but you sometimes wish we saw more of Matt LeBlanc in Episodes. There's a reason he was one of the highest-paid comic actors in the world: like a tennis pro, he hits the sweet spot of any line or reaction without breaking a sweat.

Here Matt is once again wound up by that bumptious young co-star and starts to feel that his own star is slipping: he's not washed-up, exactly, but neither is he quite the A-lister he once was. Episodes is excellent on these Hollywood status games: a trip to The Tonight Show delivers a dent to the ego (Jay Leno guest-stars as himself). But the best gags revolve around a natural disaster in Peru - and how real-life tragedy plays out in Tinseltown.

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.

Radio Times review

If you're someone who is always rooting for Episodes to live up to its promise, good news: now it roars into gear, after a so far slightly halting start to series three.

To begin with there's a lovely scene where a young actor on Pucks! (the show-within-a-show) goes to Matt LeBlanc for advice. He's getting offers of movie roles and he doesn't know how to choose them. "Back when you were hot, you did a lot of movies, right?" he asks. "I do not wanna be 50 and still doing sitcoms!" The fact that he makes a little gesture to Matt at this point does not endear him to the star of the show, who is now keen to get a movie role himself - at whatever cost to Pucks!

Meanwhile, Sean and Beverly try to discuss the fact that they're having "a problem, fornicationally" and the new network boss calls a 6am meeting and instructs Carol, "Tell people I expect them to bring their truth."

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.

Matt continues to seek custody of his children; not easy, after being discovered driving under the influence with his kids in the car. "You are the worst client I've ever had," drawls his lawyer. "I'd happily trade you for two Mel Gibsons and a Tiger Woods." Meanwhile, Sean is distraught after Beverly admits she slept with Rob. "You only dated him twice - so on 50% of your dates, you slept with Rob," he says. "Or, you could say I only slept with him on half our dates," she shoots back. Beautifully toe-curling television.

Radio Times review

Although at heart it's a sitcom, the longer, dramatic storylines in Episodes mean you may not want to read on if you haven't seen the series opener...

In the biggest news, network exec Carol is set to get a new boss, having been passed over (humiliatingly) for the top job she was promised. Naturally, her colleagues are preparing their resumes, convinced the new broom will sweep them all out, but when he turns up he proves to be madder than they imagined: "I don't care if we fail," he tells Carol. "If we go down in flames at least there were flames."

Meanwhile, Matt tells his lawyer (another brief, brilliant cameo by Nigel Planer) that the drink-driving charge is nonsense. "I was so not drunk. Believe me: I've driven drunk and I know the difference."

Episodes (BBC Two) is a Transatlantic affair about a husband-and-wife writing team (Stephen Mangan and Tamsin Greig) who decamp to Los Angeles and adapt their History Boys-esque Brit hit into a dumbed-down US sitcom starring Matt LeBlanc. How very meta. How very postmodern. How very mediocre.

The cartoonish American characters supplied the lion's share of laughs. Ageing playboy LeBlanc sent himself up gamely: vain, self-destructive, increasingly doughy but still silver foxy, with enough flashes of Joey Tribbiani to keep Friends fans happy. Daisy Haggard and Kathleen Rose Perkins were funny as face-pulling, nice-but-dim network executives Myra and Carol, with a tendency to trip over their own high heels in their scramble up the career ladder.

There were some sharp lines. Matt's battle for custody of his children was undermined by his arrest for drunk-driving. "You're the worst client I've ever had," barked his lawyer (our own Nigel Planer, putting on a ropy American accent). "I'd happily trade you for two Mel Gibsons and a Tiger Woods." Carol was infatuated with her square-jawed boss but insisted: "Obviously I would never go there." Beverly (Greig) raised a sceptical eyebrow: "Pur-lease. You keep an apartment there."

Newly reconciled Beverly and Sean (Mangan) were on the rocks again after she admitted having a one-night stand. It's this central pair that are the problem. They convince as writing partners but not as a couple. Mangan, who is normally excellent (see Green Wing, Dirk Gently) comes over like a whiny student. Greig's character is the moral centre of the show but this makes her a bit blank and boring. Their chemistry is strangely sexless. A snogging scene was faintly uncomfortable, of the sort that makes a teenager go, "Ugh, Muuum, Daaad, that's disgusting!" if their parents kiss.

Somehow Episodes has made it to a third series without leaving much of an impression. A fourth has even been commissioned. Presumably it survives owing to the star power of LeBlanc. It makes the odd sharp observation about Hollywood and the fickle nature of celebrity but feels undercooked. It's so busy smugly admiring its own cleverness that it forgot to add enough jokes.

Return to lonely town: Episodes on BBC2

Given the absence of jokes, tension, consequence - and the presence of Matt LeBlanc - what is there to keep the audience of Episodes on its side?

Tamsin Greig interview

The actor on finding her funny bone, the homing instinct of Archers' fans, and why she'll never swap London for LA.