Stephen Mangan

Pucks! takes a time out tonight when news breaks that Merc's father has died, furnishing the writers of Episodes with all the tragicomic potential of a funeral. As with so much of this series, it's a qualified success, as a procession of competitive mourning techniques (muffin basket? charity donation?) open up further faultlines in Sean and Bev's moribund relationship. Stephen Mangan, Tamsin Greig and Matt LeBlanc are now displaying the sort of relaxed chemistry that only comes with time, and the latter struts off with most of the best lines (the less politically correct, the better). But the attempts at pathos fall flat - these characters haven't done enough to earn our sympathy yet. And why sideline Daisy Haggard, whose formidable arsenal of disgusted expressions was such a pleasure in Series 1?

Blessed with a rich basic idea, Episodes (BBC Two) forges on. The basic idea is that the Americans are copying a British hit comedy show and, of course, changing everything. The British writers, played by Tamsin Greig and Stephen Mangan, are on the spot in LA to help with the task of butchering their own creation. Matt LeBlanc, always the funniest of the men in Friends, plays the randy American star. There is nothing and nobody I have so far mentioned that I can't laugh at, not even Stephen Mangan, who, after Dirk Gently, had moved, I thought, irretrievably into the category of Not Funny. The trick with Episodes is that it satirises the Yanks while accurately borrowing all their best precision. Television about television is hard to do. Aaron Sorkin's Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip was a sprawling mess compared to Episodes. There is an advantage to keeping the premise simple.

The satire isn't always subtle, but there's still much to enjoy in this British-led LA-based sitcom. It's the Americans who provide most of the laughs. Tonight, network head Merc Lapidus's (John Pankow) father dies, prompting a flurry of competitive condolence gifts ("a turkey the size of a Prius") that leave Brits Beverly (Tamsin Greig) and Sean (Stephen Mangan) utterly bewildered. Matt (Matt LeBlanc), meanwhile, is nervous about attending the funeral. He's having an affair with Merc's blind wife ("it's good, you don't have to suck in your gut").

There can be a lot of fun for a comedy actor, offering a space where the performer isn't obliged to share the credit for a laugh with the writer. There were two good examples in this week's Episodes, in which Stephen Mangan plays one half of a sitcom-writing team. The first was one of his specialities as an actor - the facial expression of a wrestling match between baser instincts and finer ones, played out here when he's offered a free sports car by the Hollywood star who broke up his marriage. The second came from Daisy Haggard, who played an irretrievably dim American executive giving notes after a script run-through. The line wasn't bad - "Page 18?... will anyone know who Rudyard Kipling is?" - but it was the long pause as she tried to work out how to respond to a counter-argument that was really funny. As Episodes can be, incidentally, when it doesn't get carried away with self-reference.

Sean has slept with Morning, the sexy actress in his sitcom. That birthday kiss in the car park has led to a night of passion that leaves Sean walking on air and gives Stephen Mangan the chance to smile as widely as only he knows how. It's very much Mangan's episode, as his character tries to fend off all attempts by Matt to reignite their friendship.

The banter between Mangan and LeBlanc is a treat but this instalment veers towards the gentle end of the laughter scale, with the plot paddling in the shallows and no head of comic steam. The characters gel, the chemistry works, the setting is fun: it's time Episodes stopped being so episodic.

Sean (Stephen Mangan) and Bev's show-within-a-show suffers a ratings drop in episode two. However, star Matt LeBlanc is more concerned about providing some recompense for splitting up their marriage.

In fact, the scenes in which he tries to buy back Sean's friendship suggest this would have been funnier pared back into a simpler LeBlanc/Mangan chalk-and-cheese comedy.

There are some good gags in tonight's episode of this smart sitcom about the travails of a British husband and wife comedy-writing team working in Los Angeles. As ever, the smooth-talking Matt LeBlanc delivers most of them. Tonight, he attempts to buy back Sean's (Stephen Mangan) affections with a new sports car and a wisecrack that cannot be reproduced in the pages of a family newspaper. Sean, doing his best to summon a stiff upper lip, refuses the car, only to discover that Bev (Tamsin Greig) has an automotive surprise of her own.

I feel pathetic for thinking how nice it is that Matt LeBlanc has deigned to star in the British sitcom Episodes (BBC Two, Friday). I suppose he's not exactly slumming it, giving that it is a big-budget, joint British and American production, written by David Crane, the co-creator of Friends. And the first series won LeBlanc a Golden Globe. But still.

LeBlanc plays an insensitive, sexually rampant, self-absorbed version of himself, who comes between a British husband and wife (Stephen Mangan and Tamsin Greig) by sleeping with the wife. It's play-within-a-play stuff, or rather sitcom-within-a-sitcom, a bit like Extras. It also represents something of a mini-genre in which stars play versions of themselves, such as Larry David in the glorious Curb Your Enthusiasm.

The first episode of this second series of Episodes got off to a slightly wobbly start with a gratuitous scene in which LeBlanc was given hand relief by a blind woman in a screening room. Sub-American Pie that, I thought. But it had its moments. I even laughed out loud at one point when LeBlanc began smiling during a telling off from his former mate Mangan. "I miss this," he said... Perhaps you had to be there. My favourite line though was this from a TV executive: "No one cares about TV reviews. They hate most of the crap we've got on the air and people still watch it."

Episodes combined sadness, comedy and sexual compulsion

Episodes returned with another round of sterling performances from Matt LeBlanc, Tamsin Greig and Stephen Mangan in an episode that was pleasingly full of shock and upset.

We recommend: Episodes

Matt LeBlanc's performance, self-deprecating without being cartoonish, was a highlight, and he's still on good form. Stephen Mangan and Tamsin Greig are more comfortable in their parts, finally, and there's some fun with TV reviews that may or may not be a jab at the response to Episodes itself.