I’ve just finished watching the first season of a Showtime show called Episodes, which is available on Netflix. It stars Stephen Mangan and Tamsin Greig as a husband and wife writer duo who head to LA to make an American version of their successful (fictional) British sitcom Lyman’s Boys, only to discover that taking a show across the pond isn’t an entirely straightforward affair. Along the way they become involved with a number of colourful characters, most notably a fictionalised version of Matt LeBlanc played by ol’ Joey himself.
The overall tone of the show is pretty much what you’d expect from something Greig and Mangan are involved with, and they’re perfectly cast in their roles as Beverly and Sean Lincoln. LeBlanc, too, is excellent, with his characterisation being made up of a combination of the popular stereotypes about him — or rather, about his most fondly-remembered part, Joey from Friends — and a surprising amount of depth and moral ambiguity.
The show is deeply critical of the way American TV networks and showbusiness in general do things. Initially brought to LA on the assurance that network executive “Merc” is in love with their show, Sean and Beverly subsequently discover that very little of what they’ve been told is true. Merc hasn’t seen their show and lots of people already have their own opinions on how best to “Americanise” the whole thing. Most notable is the casting of LeBlanc in the lead role of the headmaster Lyman, who was, in the original British version, an erudite, witty, portly and middle-aged man who developed a strong bond with his young male charges and a doomed infatuation with his school’s lesbian librarian. After a number of “suggestions” and changes far beyond Sean and Beverly’s control, what was once called Lyman’s Boys and was about a headmaster in a boys’ boarding school subsequently becomes Pucks!, a show about a lacrosse coach who is in love with a not-at-all-lesbian librarian.
Despite everything, Pucks! actually turns out to be a rather good show that test audiences respond well to, but the stress that piles on top of Sean and Beverly brings the pair of them almost to breaking point on numerous occasions. Sean’s developing friendship with LeBlanc and his overactive libido leads him to consider playing away from Beverly with Morning, the much-older-than-she-looks-but-still-smoking-hot actress who plays the librarian in Pucks!, but ultimately his own sense of integrity wins out. This doesn’t stop Beverly from overreacting and completely misreading the situation, however, leading to some spectacular tensions being released in the last episode of the first season.
Episodes is effective because, for the most part, it relies on a distinctly modern British approach to situation comedy. That is to say, it errs more on the side of comedy-drama than playing out setpieces for laughs. There’s an air of restraint that runs through the whole programme, which makes moments like the furious and rather incompetent fight between Sean and LeBlanc in the last episode all the more effective, because they are symptomatic of how the show depicts “the British condition” as a whole: bottling everything up inside, then releasing it in a spectacular frenzy when it all gets too much. LeBlanc even comments on this in the middle of the whole situation that he is, in part, to blame for: “Man, I can’t get over how you guys fight,” he says. “When we fight, it’s just all ‘fuck you’, ‘fuck you’, ‘no, fuck YOU’…”
With everything I’ve said there, you’d probably be right to assume that Episodes isn’t a show that everyone will find entirely palatable. It’s rather brutally honest and plays a lot on awkward situations that some viewers might find uncomfortable to witness. It builds tension between the characters absolutely masterfully, only releasing it when it’s absolutely at breaking point. And, as a critique of the falseness of showbusiness, it does its job extremely well.
Very interested to see how the subsequent seasons go, since the first season ended on a suitably infuriating cliffhanger.
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