Episodes to end after Series 5
- BBC Two sitcom Episodes is to end after the next series
- Creators David Crane and Jeffrey Klarik say "we've told the story we set out to tell"
- The seven-part Series 5 is filming now, and will be broadcast on the BBC in 2017
Episodes, the BBC Two sitcom starring Stephen Mangan, Tamsin Greig and Matt LeBlanc is to end after its next series.
The comedy, which launched in 2011 and follows the adventures of a British writing couple who wind up working in Los Angeles with Friends star Matt LeBlanc, has so far run for four series.
Production on a fifth series begins in London next week, however it looks set to be the last. Writers David Crane and Jeffrey Klarik have penned their last seven episodes.
Gary Levine from American TV network Showtime, which partners with the BBC to make the programme, confirmed the show would be coming to an end. "Episodes' scathing portrait of network executives has kept me on my best behaviour these last several years, for which I am grudgingly grateful to Jeffrey and David. I love this show and can't wait to see what comic heights Matt and company will scale during the fifth and final season of our inspired series."
Crane and Klarik add: "We have had the best time making this show. Showtime has been the opposite of every network we write about. If it were up to them we could go on making Episodes forever. But we've told the story we set out to tell and we'd never want to outstay our welcome."
Talking about Series 5, the production team explain: "In the final season, everyone is in the midst of their own personal hell - if hell can have great weather, palm trees and more than one personal assistant."
In the new episodes, having lost out on his sitcom job, Matt LeBlanc is now forced to host The Box, the game show producer Merc (John Pankow) is working on. The programme is a hit, however Merc never resists the opportunity to try to ruin Matt's life, and the audience "seem to have forgotten" LeBlanc was ever an actor. Meanwhile, Sean and Beverly are forced to work for Sean's former partner Tim (Bruce Mackinnon), perhaps the worst show runner in the history of television, and Carol (Kathleen Rose Perkins) is "out of a job, out of money and possibly out of showbusiness".
Series 5 of Episodes is expected to be shown on BBC Two in early 2017.