LeBlanc, Greig & Mangan on giggling during Episodes

Keeping a straight face appears to be the biggest challenge facing Matt LeBlanc, Tamsin Greig and Stephen Mangan as they shoot their hit TV comedy Episodes.

Episodes can carry on without Pucks, says Matt LeBlanc

Matt LeBlanc has said that Episodes can prosper even without its fictional TV show Pucks.

Stephen Mangan: 'Episodes could go on and on'

Stephen Mangan has said that Episodes could go "on and on" as the writing gets richer with every series.

Episodes series three: Stephen Mangan Q&A

During a break before his evening performance in Jeeves and Wooster on the London stage recently, British actor and funnyman Stephen spoke to AccessHollywood.com about what fans can expect when Season 3 of Episodes kicks off tonight at 10:30 PM ET/PT on the American Showtime network.

Episodes to send up LeBlanc's Graham Norton appearance

Showtime comedy Episodes will use Matt LeBlanc's real life appearance on The Graham Norton Show as a storyline for the fictionalised version of himself on the show.

Series two provided little respite for downtrodden British writers Sean and Beverly as they fought to keep their sitcom - and marriage - alive whilst all around them in La La Land were losing their heads. It didn't help that Beverley (Tamsin Greig) had slept with the show's star Matt LeBlanc (Matt LeBlanc), or that Sean (Stephen Mangan) was now sleeping with the female lead. The second season of Episodes continued to offer a smart, funny, hyper-real story of 'normal' people trying to make it in Hollywood.

After the unmitigated failure that was Friends spin-off Joey, this British-US comedy threw Matt LeBlanc a potentially dubious lifeline.

In it, British screenwriting couple Sean (Stephen Mangan) and Beverly (Tamsin Greig) are tasked with adapting their subtle sitcom for a US audience but it is rendered almost unrecognisable thanks to ratings-crazed network execs who insist on casting one Matt LeBlanc in the lead role.

LeBlanc plays the floundering fall guy with glee, creating a fictionalised version of himself as the epitome of LA douche baggery.

The success of Episodes' humour lies in its assassination of throwaway US sitcoms, coupled with the ever-so-English pair's squeamishness towards Hollywood life.

It is a risky comeback role for LeBlanc but the risk paid off - just one season in and he bobbed up clutching a Golden Globe.

Episodes: series two, DVD review

Sophie Haslett reviews series two of Episodes, the soft Hollywood satire starring Stephen Mangan, Tamsin Greig and Matt LeBlanc.